Jailer 2 box office: Rajinikanth crosses ₹540 crore in six days

Jailer 2 has made about ₹542 crore worldwide in six days, according to trade tracker Sacnilk, and on Wednesday it was set to cross ₹300 crore net in India. Rajinikanth’s return as Tiger Muthuvel Pandian opened on October 15 and has held its ground through the week.

The daily numbers explain how fast it got there. Sacnilk puts the India net at ₹59.70 crore on day one, ₹37.10 crore on day two and ₹47.25 crore on day three, before the weekend pushed it back up to ₹55.85 crore. Monday brought ₹42.35 crore, and Tuesday actually grew, to about ₹46.80 crore. That took the six-day India net to ₹289.05 crore, or ₹338.45 crore gross, with roughly ₹204 crore more from overseas.

Sun Pictures has not put out an official worldwide figure. The overseas distributor has, announcing a gross of more than 20 million dollars with a poster calling the film an industry blockbuster. The Tamil version is doing most of the work at home: of Wednesday’s early collections, ₹8.15 crore came from 3,543 Tamil shows, ₹2.67 crore from 1,139 Telugu shows, and less than ₹1 crore from 2,702 Hindi shows, despite a cast that includes Mohanlal, Shivarajkumar, Vidya Balan, Mithun Chakraborty, SJ Suryah and a Hrithik Roshan cameo that has fans talking.

Not every screen is running smoothly. York Cinemas in Canada stopped showing the film on Wednesday, saying it had not received valid Key Delivery Messages, the digital keys that unlock a film’s files for projection. The cinema said it had met its financial commitments and named the North American distributors, Shloka Entertainments and Prathyangira Cinemas, along with the authorisation required from Sun Pictures. “Without valid KDMs, we are technically unable to continue screening the film,” it said. None of the three companies had responded publicly by Wednesday evening.

Back home, the film found one very loyal customer. Cricketer Sanju Samson missed the first-day show because the Indian team was travelling to Delhi, so on October 20 he booked an entire screen in Bengaluru and took his wife, friends, and the teammates and support staff who understand Tamil. “I love watching Rajini sir’s movies, and I always look forward to his next film,” he said.

The target now is the first film. Jailer finished its 2023 run at about ₹604 crore worldwide. Jailer 2 needs roughly ₹60 crore more to pass it, and it is only in its first Wednesday.