Bethlehem Kudumba Unit earned $2.47 million across North America, setting a record for Malayalam cinema.
When Jailer 2 opened last Thursday, Rajinikanth did what he has done for decades: he turned a release day into a holiday. The Tamil sequel grossed about ₹125 crore worldwide on opening day, and by Wednesday it had reached roughly ₹578 crore, according to the tracking portal Sacnilk. 2 on the global box office chart, behind only Hollywood’s Street Fighter. Vaazha 2 crossed ₹235 crore worldwide, and Drishyam 3 passed ₹240 crore. It crossed ₹300 crore worldwide in 24 days and passed Lokah: Chapter 1 – Chandra to become the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever. It finished near ₹331 crore, reportedly on a budget of about ₹23 crore. In Telugu cinema, Ram Charan’s Peddi passed ₹320 crore worldwide in two weeks, while Ravi Teja’s Irumudi, a father-daughter drama with an Ayyappa devotional thread, grossed ₹200 crore worldwide and became the actor’s career best. Premada Oorali, a village family drama made for a reported ₹2.5 crore, opened on just 60 shows. It has since climbed past 1,000 shows and ₹67 crore, driven by word of mouth and revived single-screen theatres. Bethlehem Kudumba Unit closed with $2.47 million in the U.S. and Canada, including $1.49 million in the U.S., the highest total ever for a Malayalam film there. Peddi earned more than $1.5 million from premiere screenings alone. Jailer 2 grossed $1.4 million from premieres, Kollywood’s fourth-best ever, and reached the U.S. weekend top 10 at No. 9 with $3.2 million from about 800 theatres.
It also posted the biggest first week ever for a Tamil film. Over the weekend it ranked No. Trade watchers say it is tracking toward the biggest Tamil hit of all time, though a long run is still needed to catch the record. Nowhere is that clearer than in Kerala. Then came Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, a Nivin Pauly and Mamitha Baiju romantic comedy that opened on Onam and kept climbing. Kannada cinema has produced the year’s most striking underdog. North American audiences have been part of the surge. After years of pan-India tentpoles, the year’s biggest wins are also rooted, emotional stories that travel on word of mouth. The South is no longer a regional story. It is the story.