The only time that director Sudipto Sen’s controversial film The Kerala Story recorded a single-digit collection was last Friday, its first day in theatres — such has been the film’s momentum at the box office that on day six, it actually showed an improvement over day five. This is the second day in a row that The Kerala Story has outdone the collections of the previous day.
According to the industry tracker Sacnilk, The Kerala Story earned an impressive Rs 12 crore India nett as per early estimates. Apart from its Sunday collections, which stood at a little over Rs 16 crore, its Wednesday figures have been the highest so far.
With its continued double-digit collections, The Kerala Story’s overall box office stands at a whopping Rs 68.86 crore, leaving behind most big films of the last two years combined, including Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha, Akshay Kumar’s Selfiee, Kartik Aaryan’s Shehzada. The film is well on its way to surpass even Ajay Devgn’s Bholaa, which had netted more than Rs 90 crore in its lifetime, and has made more than three times as much as Ponniyin Selvan 2 in the Hindi market. The Tamil-language epic made around Rs 21 crore through its Hindi dubbed version.
The Kerala Story is trending much like last year’s controversial film The Kashmir Files, with both films benefiting from the support of the ruling BJP government. The Kerala Story was even mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a recent speech, giving the film much needed boost despite poor critics’ reviews. “Such a beautiful state of the country, where people are hardworking and talented. The Kerala Story film brings out terror conspiracies happening in that state,” Prime Minister Modi had said last week at a rally in Karnataka.
Starring Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Siddhi Idnani and Sonia Balani, The Kerala Story was earlier officially described as the story of more than 32,000 Kerala women who’d allegedly been radicalised by Islamic fundamentalists. However, the number was changed to three after protests began online against the misinformation being spread by the film.
The Kerala Story has been made tax-free in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, while it has been banned in West Bengal.
