Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Disha Patani starrer Kalki 2898 AD has taken the biggest opening of 2024

Project K aka Kalki 2898 AD featuring Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Disha Patani, has been in the news right from its inception and finally, after a long wait and anticipation, the mega-budget movie released last Thursday and opened to bumper response not only in India but also in the international markets.

The apocalyptic mythological sci-fi venture has shattered several records in its first two days at the box office and since it has all the potential to emerge as one of the biggest industry hits in the history of Indian cinema, let’s decode its national and global appeal predicts its lifetime business

Talking about the biggest USP of Kalki 2898 AD, prominent trade expert Ramesh Bala said, “I think the biggest USP of the movie is the cast. It covered Prabhas from Telugu, Deepika and Amitabh Bachchan from Hindi, and Kamal Haasan from Tamil. So the cast is kind of widely palatable to the pan-India audience. So, they were curious and they went and saw the movie. So, that played a major role because it satisfied, you know, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi audiences. And obviously, the movie was also reasonably received. I mean it may not have received 100% possibly, but at least the majority of them were positive reviews. So, it helped the movie to do big numbers.”

Talking about the sustainability of Kalki 2898 AD at the box office until the arrival of Hindustani 2 aka Indian 2, Bala quoted, “See, basically the movie has done the business of Rs  300 crores in two days, which means Friday and Saturday. It can cross 500 crores by Sunday night, which is still a good number. Then you are looking at weekdays there will be a weekday drop. So, we have to just see how much is the weekday drop. And certainly next weekend it will pick up. So, eventually, it shouldn’t be a problem. I think it may not have the greatest hold on Monday. It will be like an average hold still that I think overall given the second weekend, third weekend and overall it should reasonably do big numbers, lifetime.”

When questioned, whether it can achieve the Rs 1000 crore mark at the global box office, Ramesh answered, “Since it is going to do 500 crores by Sunday night, then another 500 crores lifetime shouldn’t be a problem because the Hindi market is doing well. The Hindi market is where the majority of the long-run revenue is going to come. It should do well for two weeks in the Hindi market till Indian 2 arrives. And overseas also it’s doing well. See, there is a positive momentum and huge box office numbers are achieved. It creates momentum among people, who are like Kalki has done Rs 300 crore and Rs 400 crore. Let me go and check it. So that will help the movie irrespective of the budget. So, there is a possibility of it doing like Rs 850 crore to thousand crores a lifetime.”

Decoding the phenomenal business of South films in the overseas markets, Bala quoted, “See, two things are there. If you look at the US, it has a huge Telugu population audience. So they keep the momentum. It’s like jump-starting the car. They give the initial momentum with premiers. Hindi movies don’t have any premieres and they just open on day one. But the premieres of Telugu films all over the world help to give it a start. Momentum at the opening then the larger-than-life narrative, the cast, the wide, the overseas audience always prefer to spend money on big budget movies and big stars. So, that helps it to do well. In overseas, apart from the Hindi-speaking people, there are a lot of Tamil and Telugu-speaking people like in Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, all over the world, Europe and North America, Australia also. So it is a pan-India audience overseas. Unlike the north Indian audience for Hindi movies, it’s all the audience wants to watch. Look at countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka are predominantly a Tamil market. Since Kamal Haasan is there in the Tamil version, which is released, they will watch it for him. They may not have that advantage.”