Poster of ‘Thug Life’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam’s much-anticipated Tamil film Thug Life, starring Kamal Haasan and Silambarasan TR, collected ₹17 crores on its opening day, June 5, at the Indian box office. The film arrived in theatres with sky-high expectations, especially since it marked a reunion between Mani and Kamal after 38 years.

However, the opening figure falls short of even Kamal’s previous film, the widely panned Indian 2, which opened to ₹25.2 crores, according to Sacnilk. That Thug Life hasn’t been released in Karnataka following the controversy surrounding Kamal’s remark on Kannada is a major factor for the drop in the collections. For comparison, Indian 2 had raked in ₹3.45 crores on the opening day in Karnataka.

According to Sacnilk, the Tamil version of the film saw its highest occupancy in Pondicherry, with 70.25 per cent, followed by Chennai with 69.25 per cent.

Thug Life, one of the biggest Tamil films of the year, reunites Kamal and Mani Ratnam after the iconic Nayakan (1987). With music scored by A.R. Rahman, the gangster drama also stars Silambarasan T.R. in a pivotal role alongside Trisha, Nasser, Joju George, Abhirami, Bhagavathi Perumal, Ashok Selvan, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Sanya Malhotra and Ali Fazal among others.

The film is produced by Kamal’s Raaj Kamal Films International and Mani Ratnam’s Madras Talkies.

The Hindu’s review of the film read, “A 163-minute chronicle of an elderly gangster’s tryst with love, destiny, guilt and death, Thug Life is a gangster crime drama with stretches so generic and cold that you might wonder if it was really the filmmaker at the helm.”