Half of 2026 is already over and more than 100 films have been released in Kollywood so far. While every year at least more than 10 biggies are released in Kollywood during this period, surprisingly until now, not even 5 biggies have been released this year and medium-budget movies have been the saviours of the industry so far.
Since the beginning of this year, other than in April and June, medium-budget movies have given huge profits to theatre owners. The only big successful film, Suriya’s Karuppu, attracted a huge section of the audience to theatres and gave a massive boost to the box office collections.
Although the start of this year ended up as a disappointment for the Kollywood industry with the failure of anticipated biggies such as Sivakarthikeyan’s Parasakthi and Karthi’s Vaa Vaathiyaar released for Sankranti and also the postponement of Vijay’s Jana Nayagan, Jiiva’s Thalaivar Thambi Thalaimaiyil, which was also released alongside Parasakthi and Vaa Vaathiyaar for Pongal, emerged as a successful venture and gave some relief to theatre owners.
At the end of January, while every theatre owner and distributor was afraid that February, which didn’t have any notable releases, might end up as a dry month, Abishan Jeevinth’s With Love and Thaai Kizhavi emerged as saviours and did great business at the box office.
Especially since both the films had a huge gap between them, they had a complete free run for more than 3 weeks and attracted a huge number of viewers to the theatres.
While Thaai Kizhavi completed its theatrical run in the middle of March after enjoying a 3-week free run, Ken Karunas’s debut film Youth got released and continued the momentum until the end of March.
After medium-budget movies saved the Tamil Nadu theatrical business for the first three months and because Pradeep Ranganathan’s Love Insurance Kompany and Dhanush’s Kara were scheduled for release in April, many theatre owners believed that from April biggies would come into action and would elevate the box office collections. But unfortunately, both LIK and Kara ended up as terrible failures and April ended up as a dull month for both distributors and theatre owners.
However, Suriya’s most anticipated film Karuppu and the surprise blockbuster medium-budget film Blast gave double profits to theatre owners in the month of May. Especially, Suriya’s Karuppu went on a rampage at the box office and collected more than 150 crores in Tamil Nadu alone. It also emerged as the highest-grossing movie of Suriya’s career. Karuppu dominated the box office and with continuous houseful shows, it gave massive momentum to the box office collections in Tamil Nadu.
But June ended up as another disappointing month for Kollywood. Although notable medium-budget films such as Parimala and Co, Nooru Saami, Heartin and Con City were released with decent pre-release buzz, due to mixed reviews from the audience, people did not show interest in watching these films in theatres. Consequently, after April, June ended up as another dull month for theatre owners in Tamil Nadu.
Among the dubbed films, only Dhurandhar 2 managed to generate profits, whereas highly anticipated films like Drishyam 3 and Patriot ended up as failures and went unnoticed.
So far it’s a good year for the Kollywood industry and other than Karuppu, medium-budget movies have ruled the Kollywood industry, but the second half of this year has multiple biggies lined up for release. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the second half of the year will be ruled by the biggies and if 2026 will end up as a highly profitable year for the Kollywood industry.
