Sivakarthikeyan‘s ‘Doctor’ has beaten all records to emerge as what we can call the first Kollywood blockbuster post the second Covid wave. The Nelson Dilipkumar directorial that had been lying on shelves for a while due to the pandemic, finally hit screens on Saturday, 9th October. The black comedy thriller has been extremely well received upon its release to say the least, with celebratory video clips from various theatres going viral. Trade analysts were predicting that ‘Doctor’ would guarantee better results than the recent Tamil success ‘Kodiyil Oruvan’ and their predictions have indeed proven to be true and how!
Even as ‘Doctor‘ faced some last minute issues with multiplexes who were demanding an additional 5% increase in profits, actor and joint-producer Sivakarthikeyan reportedly let go of his salary in order to release the film as scheduled. The bilingual that deals with organ trafficking and kidnapping has been widely appreciated and great reviews are pouring in for the team. Most predictions for the first day collections were hovering around 4-5cr, with the movie having released in over 1800 screens in India, though the film has gone on to beat those numbers by a huge margin recording collections of over 8 crores in the state of Tamil Nadu itself.
Apart from this, the collections from other states in India (mainly Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) is roughly around 1.5 crores and that overseas is around a crore. That takes the total worldwide gross to 10.5 crores. At this rate, the first weekend collection is likely to touch 22-25 crore, despite it being a two day weekend, since the film released on a Saturday, not Friday. With the budget of ‘Doctor’ being around 25 crore, the cost has already been recovered by the digital and satellite rights sold to Sun TV for the same amount.
‘Doctor’s first day figures come in just behind the Naga Chaitanya-Sai Pallavi starrer ‘Love Story’ that was declared the first Indian blockbuster post the second Covid wave, with a worldwide day 1 grossing of over 16 crores. With a solid storyline and lead actor Sivakarthikeyan’s performance being praised to the moon, ‘Doctor’ has been trending upon its release and is likely to see a good run in the first week. Some cinema owners have also taken to social media to announce housefull shows in their theatres today as well as tomorrow. Interestingly, special shows are starting at 8 am tomorrow, whereas the first show was a 6 am one today!