Entertainment

India’s Most Expensive Film 2.0 Breaks $50 million At International Box Office

South Indian film industry’s veteran director Shankar’s extravagant science-fiction flick 2.0 is off to a terrific start. Touted as India’s costliest film to produce with a budget of just over $75 million, the film has opened to an astounding $52 million internationally, even surpassing the $40 million haul of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald this week.

In its country of origin India, the movie opened to $10 million in a single day, taking its total to a whopping 400 crores (close to $60 million). That’s taking into account the multiple delays the movie faced in its release due to a botched up visual effects production.

Of course opening numbers can be a bit misleading since they’re often a result of advance bookings. Now that a lot of people have seen the movie, critical reception and positive word of mouth will be paramount in the movie doing strong business in the weeks to come. As it stands, 2.0 has a 70% positive reception on movie aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, albeit from only 10 reviews. Critical reception is positive, if not overwhelmingly so, and the general audience also seems to be soaking in the glory of VFX-heavy action featuring some of India’s biggest celebrities in Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar.

Directed by Shankar, the movie sees antagonist Akshay Kumar assume the mantle of a crow as he intends to rid the world of their smartphone addiction. Rajinikanth plays the dual role of a scientist Vasikaran and his robotic creation Chitti who is rebooted after the events of the first movie Enthiran with an updated firmware to tackle the gigantic crow-like creature. This updated firmware version serves as the basis for the movie’s title.

2.0 is out in theaters now. Let us know if you’ve seen it and what you think of it in the comments below.