Rishab Shetty’s Kantara crosses ₹400 crore worldwide, beats KGF Chapter 2 to be highest-grossing film ever in Karnataka

Kannada blockbuster Kantara is in no mood to slow down at the box office. On Tuesday, the film crossed the ₹400-crore mark in gross collections worldwide, making it only the second Kannada film ever to do so. And that’s not the only feather in its cap. Over the weekend, the film also became the highest-grossing film ever in Karnataka. Also read: Varun Dhawan says Hindi films are ‘getting their a** kicked’, praises Kantara

Kantara, directed by Rishab Shetty, was a sleeper hit upon its release. Made on a modest budget of ₹15 crore, it was not expected to reach even the ₹100-crore mark, let alone make four times that. On Tuesday afternoon, trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted that the film had crossed the ₹400-crore mark globally in under two months in gross collections. Taran’s tweet also gave a breakdown of the film’s earnings territory-wise.

On Sunday, the film crossed ₹155 crore in nett earnings within Karnataka, overtaking the mark set by KGF: Chapter 2 just earlier this year. By Tuesday, the film has earned over ₹160 crore nett in Karnataka alone. The dubbed versions of Kantara, which were released two weeks after the initial release, have also been doing well. The Hindi version has nett collections of ₹82 crore so far while the Telugu version has earned ₹42 crore.

Kantara is a thriller that is rooted in the folklore and traditions of coastal Karnataka and merges stories about man vs nature and land politics with the belief system and rituals of the land. The film has been praised by critics and audiences as well and is the highest-rated Indian film on IMDb currently.

Kantara is currently the sixth-highest-grossing Indian film of the year. But it is slowly closing in on numbers 5 (Kamal Haasan’s Vikram with ₹414 crore) and 4 (Ranbir Kapoor’s Brahmastra with ₹431 crore).