Kantara box office: Rishab Shetty film crosses ₹70 crore gross in Karnataka, inches closer to ₹100 cr globally

Rishab Shetty-directed Kannada action drama Kantara is unstoppable at the box office.

In Karnataka, the film has crossed ₹70 crore gross and is inching closer to breach the ₹100 crore club globally by this weekend.

Following the tremendous response for the film even outside Karnataka, its dubbed Hindi version releases on Friday, while the Tamil version will hit the screens on Saturday. Kantara, which released on September 30, also stars Rishab in the lead role.

Kantara, which translates to mystical forest, tells the story of a local demigod (Bhoota) who trades forest land to the tribe’s people with a king in 1870 in exchange for happiness. Many years later, when the king’s son grows greedy and wants the land back, he dies due to the wrath of Bhoota.

Trade analyst Trinath said that Kantara is having a dream run at the box office. In Karnataka, it has already grossed over ₹70 crore. “In Karnataka, more shows are being added each day.

Theatre owners are finding it difficult to allocate more shows as the demand for the tickets is so high. The film’s state gross is over Rs. 70 crore and globally it’s inching close to ₹100 crore mark, which it could breach this weekend as the film is being released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu,” Trinath said.

Kantara released alongside Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan: I, also known as PS1, and still managed to do well at the ticket window. “PS1 had a grand release in Karnataka with over 600 shows in its opening weekend.

Despite the film doing extremely well in the state, it didn’t affect the prospects of Kantara at the box-office which made a solid impact with its content. The folklore element in Kantara was one of the major crowd-pulling highlights,” Trinath said.

Last week, Chiranjeevi’s GodFather had a decent release in Karnataka and managed to collect around ₹8 crore during its first week run. Both PS1 and GodFather didn’t affect the box office prospects of Kantara. Alongside Rishabh, the film also stars Kishore, Achyuth Kumar, Sapthami Gowda and Pramod Shetty, among others.