Coolie box office collection day 7: Rajinikanth-Lokesh Kanagaraj’s crime thriller Rs 23 crore ahead of Hrithik Roshan-Jr NTR’s War 2, earns Rs 222.5 cr

Over the extended opening weekend, Coolie collected Rs 65 crore, Rs 54.75 crore, Rs 39.50 crore, and Rs 35.25 crore on Thursday (day 1), Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. While War 2 opened at more than Rs 13 crore of War 2, it didn’t see a rise in numbers on the occasion of Independence Day the next day, unlike War 2, which registered a decent spike, as per Sacnilk. However, the weekend collections of both films have been underwhelming, thanks to the bad to average reviews and word of mouth.

The total box office collection of Coolie in India now stands at Rs 222.5 crore across all four languages — led by the original Tamil version, followed by the dubbed Telugu, Hindi, and Kannada versions respectively. On the other hand, War 2 has still not made it to the Rs 200 crore club as its opening week collection concluded on the edge at Rs 199 crore.

Coolie has far surpassed Rajinikanth’s last release, TJ Gnanavel’s 2024 action film Vettaiyan, which amassed Rs 171.20 crore at the domestic box office. However, it’s far behind the last release of Kanagaraj, Thalapathy Vijay-starrer 2023 action thriller Leo, which collected Rs 341.04 crore at the domestic box office.

Kanagaraj is best known for creating the Lokesh Cinematic Universe or the Lokiverse, which consists of blockbusters like Karthi-starrer Kaithi (2019), Kamal Haasan, Vijay Sethupathi, and Fahadh Faasil-starrer Vikram (2022), and Leo. However, Coolie isn’t a part of this cinematic universe. The next instalment in the Lokiverse is Bakkiyaraj Kannan’s Benz, in which Kanagaraj serves only as his co-writer and the co-producer.

Meanwhile, Coolie has earned over Rs 400 crore worldwide a week after becoming the fastest Tamil film to hit the Rs 150 crore mark globally (on its opening day itself). It also coincides with Rajinikanth completing 50 years in the film industry. However, the ‘A’ (adults only) certification of Coolie in India has also impacted its footfalls.

Also Read — The Coolie effect: The star ensemble problem with our blockbuster cinema

Coolie revolves around Rajinikanth’s titular character who stands up against the exploitation and abuse of his colleagues by a corrupt syndicate in a port town. It also stars Nagarjuna, Shruti Haasan, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, and Sathyaraj, with a cameo by Aamir Khan. Produced by Sun Piuctures, it’s distributed by Pen Studios.