The much-loved Kannada Film, Kantara with Rishab Shetty in lead opened in the Hindi cinema halls today. The film has taken a fair opening in Hindi as according to early trends, it has collected in the range of Rs. 1.25 to 1.50 crores. This is actually a very good start for a film of Kannada origin with a local flavor and a completely fresh face for the audience.
The start is better than Rocketry [Rs. 1.25 cr.] and Godfather in Hindi and one needs to take into account the fact that the opening of both the aforementioned films was aided by the presence of Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan respectively. Kantara with no support from Bollywood stars has opened better than the films which had cameos from popular Hindi Film names. The start is also better than Vikram, which benefited from Kamal Haasan's presence, who is again a known face in the Hindi market.
The film has collected around Rs. 50 to 60 lakhs in the three national chains with the non-national chains putting in another Rs. 70 lakh to Rs. 80 lakh. The word of mouth in the Hindi market is also pretty good and the film is expected to climb the ladder through the weekend with a superlative trend. If Kantara even manages to do Rs. 12-15 crores, in the long run, it would be a fair result for a regional-looking film in the Hindi market.
After KGF 2, Kannada films are also slowly looking to do some sort of business in Hindi belts. Earlier, 777 Charlie also did decent business in Hindi with no known faces, and now, Kantara too will be targeting a similar or even better number.
