'Thug Life' Box-Office: Kamal Haasan Film Rakes In ₹17 Crore On Opening Day

Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan's Thug Life got its much-awaited release on June 5, bringing fans of the venerated combination 38 years after the iconic Nayakan (1987). According to Sacnilk, the all-India box office data tracker, the Tamil film raked in ₹17 Crore on its opening day.

The film's collections could also have been affected by its ban in Karnataka, following Haasan's refusal to apologise for his language remark. At the film's audio launch, Haasan, while welcoming Kannada actor Shiva Rajkumar to the event, remarked that "Kannada was born out of Tamil." This led to severe backlash from pro-Kannada groups and the BJP. The Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce threatened to ban his film in the state if the actor didn't apologise for the comment. Eventually, the film didn't get a release in Karnataka, and the actor too refused to apologise, noting that his comments were misunderstood.

In an interview with The Hindu, producer and distributor G. Dhananjayan, predicted that the film was likely to face a loss of ₹35 crore to ₹40 crore in gross box office revenue and a loss of ₹12 crore to ₹15 crore in producer share, due to the film's ban in the state. “The Karnataka market accounts for around 7% of the total revenue,” he told the publication.

Co-written by Ratnam and Haasan, the film also stars Silambarasan TR, Trisha, Nasser, Ashok Selvan, Joju George, and Aishwarya Lekshmi, among others.