‘Irumudi’ Roars With 376K Sales As ‘Toxic’ Sinks Further, RGV Reacts Again

The second weekend has dramatically changed the box-office picture, with Ravi Teja’s ‘Irumudi’ gathering extraordinary momentum while Yash’s ‘Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown Ups’ struggles to sustain its massive opening. As ‘Irumudi’ breaks second-week records, ‘Toxic’ is facing a combination of declining collections, divided audience response and fresh controversy surrounding the film.

‘Irumudi’ delivered its biggest BookMyShow performance of the second week on Saturday, selling 376.22K tickets in a single day. The figure surpassed every other day of its second week, with the film recording 353.58K sales on Monday, 354.59K on Tuesday, 243.16K on Wednesday, 209.09K on Thursday and 334.07K on Friday.

The Saturday surge came immediately after another major achievement. ‘Irumudi’ reportedly collected around Rs. 11.5 crore gross in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on its second Friday, surpassing the corresponding second-Friday figures of ‘Baahubali 2’, ‘Pushpa 2’ and ‘Kalki 2898 AD’. Only ‘RRR’, with around Rs. 14.5 crore, remained ahead in the comparison.

The Ravi Teja and Shiva Nirvana combination has already taken the film past the Rs. 100 crore net mark in India, while its worldwide gross has crossed the Rs. 150 crore milestone. The second-week trend has also strengthened expectations that ‘Irumudi’ could become the biggest hit of Ravi Teja’s career.

Meanwhile, ‘Toxic’ is moving in the opposite direction. The film opened spectacularly with Rs. 101.10 crore net in India on its first day, but its collections dropped sharply thereafter. By Day 4, it had collected Rs. 190.45 crore net in India, with an India gross of Rs. 227.50 crore and a worldwide gross of Rs. 254.75 crore. The Day 4 figure represented a 9.9 per cent drop from Day 3.

The Hindi market, which emerged as the film’s strongest contributor, is now a major concern. The Hindi version opened with more than Rs. 55 crore net, but subsequently fell to around Rs. 25 crore on Day 2, Rs. 20 crore on Friday and approximately Rs. 15 crore on Saturday. The decline has been particularly noticeable despite the holiday advantage, raising questions over the film’s ability to sustain its business.

At the same time, ‘Toxic’ continues to find support within the Kannada film industry. After Kichcha Sudeep praised Yash for choosing an unconventional route instead of making another predictable commercial follow-up, ‘Kantara’ star Rishab Shetty also came out strongly in support of the film. He praised Yash’s conviction and called the project a daring experiment, while appreciating the actor’s effort to take Kannada cinema to the global stage.

The film has also become the subject of a wider debate over its treatment of violence and masculinity. A recent analysis argued that ‘Toxic’ may have taken the violent action template associated with films such as ‘Animal’ and ‘Dhurandhar’ in a different direction, with the film’s ambitious attempt to deconstruct hypermasculine cinema becoming one of the reasons for the divided response. The discussion has also focused on its long runtime, writing and narrative structure.

Adding another twist to the conversation, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has once again triggered speculation with his social media posts. Varma had earlier posted about watching ‘Dhurandhar’ around the time of ‘Toxic’s’ release, prompting many social-media users to interpret the remarks as a dig at Yash’s film. His latest post again generated similar speculation as ‘Toxic’s’ collections began slowing down.

Varma, however, insisted that there was “no hidden meaning” in what he said and promised that his remarks were not intended as a coded attack on ‘Toxic’. His clarification has nevertheless added another layer to the ongoing online conversation around the film.