Suggested Topics :
Decoding 'Marco's Historic Success In North India: How A Malayalam Film Eclipsed 'Baby John' And Stunned The Box-Office
'Marco' is finding itself in uncharted territory, becoming the first-ever 'mass Malayalam' movie in North India, and emerging as the highest-grossing Malayalam film dubbed in Hindi
On December 20, when filmmaker Haneef Adeni's Malayalam action film Marco hit screens, audiences in the Hindi belt were either still watching Pushpa 2, booking their tickets for Mufasa: The Lion King, or waiting for the next big Bollywood release in five days, Baby John.
Marco, headlined by actor Unni Mukundan, totally skipped the audiences' radar.
The film's Hindi dubbed version was released on 89 screens. To nobody's surprise, Marco clocked in an opening day figure of merely ₹1 lakh. But in the next ten days, the stars of the film began to shift.
As Baby John began to fizzle out owing to poor reception, and a hungry audience which had enjoyed Pushpa 2 started feeling the vacuum, Marco found itself in uncharted territory: becoming the first-ever 'mass Malayalam' movie in the Hindi-speaking regions.
"To start from ₹1 lakh on day one and then to earn ₹1.15 crore on January 1... that's a solid upwards trend," trade journalist Fenil Seta told The Hollywood Reporter India.
From 89 screens on December 20, Marco expanded to 149 screens just a week later, when the verdict of Baby John was out. On day eight, it spread over to 200 screens and by day 13, on New Years' Day, the film was playing across 500 screens.
Currently, Marco is playing across 1327 screens, with as many as 3000 shows in Hindi alone, which are increasing by the day and will further spike during the weekend.
According to trade estimates, Marco has already emerged as the highest-grossing Malayalam film dubbed in Hindi, going past bigger titles like Prithviraj Sukumaran's Aadujeevitham - The Goat Life, which had netted over ₹50 lakhs and Tovino Thomas' 2018, which ended its lifetime run under ₹30 lakhs.
"Marco wasn't a film that people were waiting for. They didn't know the hero and there was hardly any publicity. But the word-of-mouth started to kick in, especially the talk about it being the most violent film ever," Seta explained.
Trade sources said the marketing of Marco, armed with mostly positive reviews, made people in the Hindi belts give it a chance—despite not being familiar with any of the talent associated with it.
This year, Bollywood delivered the box-office success Kill, which also had its entire campaign mounted on it being a violent film, and the international acclaim it had received. Before that, Sandeep Reddy Vanga had the Ranbir Kapoor blockbuster Animal (2023). What the three films did successfully, industry insiders noted, was deliver on the "marketing promise".
"The buzz on-ground was simply that it was 'Animal ka baap,' That made people curious. Slowly the demand started to grow. Eventually, shows of Baby John started decreasing, while Marco grew over the same period," Seta said, noting that the film is trending like other surprise box-office hits in the Hindi belt, including Karthikeya 2 (2022) and Kantara (2022), even though both were bigger films.
Sanjeev Kumar Bijli, Executive Director, PVR INOX Ltd , told THR India that Marco has emerged as a "cinematic sensation" and noted how the chain is ensuring the availability of shows to meet growing demand, which includes increasing the number of shows.
"The film has struck a strong chord in the Hindi-speaking regions as well, where it is performing exceptionally well. With the pan-India occupancy rate exceeding with increasing buzz, the movie's popularity is on a steady rise, driven by glowing reviews from critics and platforms alike."
"As audience interest surges, we are closely monitoring trends and are prepared to increase the number of shows to accommodate the excitement surrounding Marco. We are thrilled to see the film resonate with audiences across markets and look forward to witnessing its continued success," he added.
Read More | Malayalam Filmmakers Chidambaram and Jithu Madhavan Team Up For New Project
Marco has found an audience outside the national chains as well, with shows being added in single screens. Film exhibitor Manoj Desai is playing the movie at his iconic Maratha Mandir, as well as his G7 Multiplex in two screens, with a collective seating capacity of 150.
Seta said the success of Marco is historic, because the North Indian market usually sees a Tamil or a Telugu film only having this kind of "mass appeal" and get a release in Hindi-dubbed versions.
"Malayalam films are more on the intellectual side, and here, even the hero was completely unknown. This is the biggest Malayalam film to have emerged in terms of collections, because the entire market of films from Kerala being dubbed in Hindi was quite non-existent until now. This makes Marco's success path-breaking," he added.
Marco has so far netted nearly ₹5 crore in Hindi and is expected to grow over the weekend, eyeing a historic lifetime nett of anywhere between ₹15 to 20 crore. With Ram Charan and Kiara Advani's Game Changer set to release on January 10, the film might take a dent, but only if the word of mouth favours the S Shankar directorial.
Trade sources suggest that the film could even clock over ₹25 crore in Hindi, if none of the new releases until Republic Day taste success.
"There is also Sonu Sood's Fateh on January 10th, which looks to be in a similar space, where he is dressed in suits and killing people. But the advantage that Marco has that it has become an 'accepted' film; we have seen post-pandemic that once a film sticks, it stays," Seta added.