The Kerala Story box office collection Day 9: Adah Sharma’s controversial film crosses Rs 100 cr mark, beats KKBKKJ’s lifetime earning

Ever since its release, The Kerala Story has been making a lot of noise, for many reasons. While many called out the film for its alleged factual inaccuracies, the big box office numbers have a different tale to tell. The Sudipto Sen directorial has been given the vote of approval by the audience as it continues to have a successful run at the BO. After earning Rs 81.15 crore in its first week, and Rs 12.23 crore on its second Friday, the Adah Sharma starrer collected approximately Rs 19.50 on Saturday, reported industry tracker Sacnilk. This brings the film’s total collection of ninth day to Rs 112.87 crore.

The website further reported that the film had a 45.60% occupancy on its second Saturday in the Hindi-speaking market. It has also become one of the biggest hits of 2023 after Pathaan and Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar. The Kerala Story has already crossed the lifetime collection of Salman Khan’s Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan which ended its run in the theaters with a mere Rs 107.71 crore. It has even overpowered other star-driven films, including Ajay Devgn’s Bholaa (Rs 82.04 crore), Akshay Kumar’s Selfiee (Rs 16.85 crore), and Kartik Aaryan’s Shehzada (Rs 32.20 crore). However, it has not been able to beat the collections of Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files, which is considered to be in the same league as The Kerala Story.

Also Read | Tovino Thomas on The Kerala Story: ‘Don’t let anybody feed misinformation’

While Bellamkonda Sreenivas’ Chatrapathi released this Friday, it did not manage to attract audiences to cinema halls. Going forward, The Kerala Story has no competition in sight, giving it room to grow further and pull people to the theaters in huge numbers. The next big release Adipurush only arrives on June 16, after the IPL fever has calmed down.

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Starring Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Siddhi Idnani and Sonia Balani, The Kerala Story was earlier officially described as the story of more than 32,000 Kerala women who’d allegedly been radicalised by Islamic fundamentalists. However, the number was changed to three from 32,000 after protests began online against the misinformation being spread by the film.

Also Read | Vipul Shah on The Kerala Story’s claim of 32000 women radicalised by Islamic fundamentalists: ‘It didn’t matter whether 32 or 32,000…’

The film, however, could not manage to impress critics. The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote in her review of the film, “The film itself is nothing but a poorly-made, poorly-acted rant which is not interested in interrogating the social complexities of Kerala, an India state proud of its multi-religious, multi-ethnic identity. All it is intent upon is creating the most simplistic, paper-thin characters to tell us that Kerala is in danger because its innocent, naïve Hindu and Christian girls are being swayed by evil Muslim men, and radicalised to the point of no return.”