The Naga Chaitanya–Sai Pallavi starrer ‘Love Story‘ has beaten all records to emerge as what we can call the first Indian superhit blockbuster post the second Covid wave. The Sekhar Kammula directorial that finally hit theatres on Friday, 24th of September, has been extremely well received upon its release in India and abroad. With celebratory video clips from various theatres going viral, the film’s weekend collections have been phenomenal. Trade analysts were expecting ‘Love Story’ to garner better results than the recent Telugu success ‘Seetimaarr’ and their predictions have indeed proven to be true and how!
‘Love Story’ began its run making records when its pre-release collections reached 306k dollars from 226 locations in the US. It is the highest opening for any film this year, surpassing that of Pawan Kalyan’s ‘Vakeel Saab’ (300k $) and Vijay’s ‘Master’ (138k $). In India, on the first day of its theatrical run, the film grossed 10.8 crores, which is also the highest first day collection for any Indian movie post the second Covid wave. Furthermore, the film made headlines when it grossed more than a million dollars in the US in 3 days itself! All this, despite it releasing only in 300 screens, as compared to other big-ticket releases in US that got more than 1000 screens.
As though this wasn’t enough news for one day, ‘Love Story’ has now managed to beat the collections of Akshay Kumar‘s ‘Bell Bottom‘ in just 3 days! The film has grossed over 50 crores in 3 days and surpassed the numbers of the Akshay Kumar starrer. The total worldwide gross on Friday, Saturday and Sunday being 16.73, 10.46 and 11.27 crore respectively, the film’s collections stood at 38.46 crore in just 3 days. With its pre-release business in the two Telugu states, the film had already acquired Rs 26.3 crore, which is almost the break-even target of the film.
Interestingly, ‘Love Story’ could have even recovered profits within the first 3 days of its run in Indian cinemas alone, the budget of the film being around 25 crore. With a good storyline and the performances of both lead actors being praised to the moon, the film 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 consistently housefull shows in their theatres and we can only wonder what business the film would’ve made under normal circumstances.