Rishab Shetty’s Kantara: Chapter 1 has set the box office on fire, emerging as the biggest Dussehra release in recent years.
The film, which released on Gandhi Jayanti and Dussehra, opened to largely positive reviews and strong audience response.
On its release day, the film collected an estimated ₹60 crore across all languages in India, according to early reports from Sacnilk.
A major surprise came from the Hindi market, which contributed ₹19–21 crore on day one. The Hindi advance bookings had wrapped up under ₹5 crore, but strong walk-ins and festive-day spot bookings pushed collections well past the ₹20 crore mark.
With this performance, Kantara: Chapter 1 has become the biggest day-one grosser for a Dussehra release, outpacing Rajinikanth’s Vettaiyan (2024, ₹31.7 crore), Nani’s Dasara (2023, ₹23.2 crore), Chiranjeevi’s Godfather (2022, ₹20.3 crore), and Mahesh Babu’s Spyder (2017, ₹25 crore).
The turnaround for the franchise is remarkable. When the first Kantara released in 2022, it opened with just ₹1.95 crore in Karnataka and ₹2.05 crore in Hindi. Strong word of mouth later made it a nationwide blockbuster.
Three years later, the prequel has stormed into theaters with a record-breaking opening, rewriting the box office story for Rishab Shetty’s ambitious saga.
