The superhit Tamil film Leo, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj and starring 'Thalapathy' Vijay, has now entered the home stretch of its box office run, less than two weeks after its release. Like most tent pole Tamil-language movies, Leo was also frontloaded, but has taken a nosedive in daily collections despite having passed major domestic and worldwide milestones. On day 12 of release, Leo made an estimated Rs 4.5 crore across India, according to industry tracker Sacnilk. This takes the movie's nett domestic collection to Rs 308 crore. Overall occupancy for the Tamil-language version was 21%, while Telugu occupancy stood at 28% and the Hindi version reported day 12 occupancy of less than 10%. Leo opened to Rs 64 crore on day one, a Thursday, breaking the record for Tamil cinema this year. Leo also topped the global box office in its first weekend, grossing more than Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour concert film, and Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. It currently stands as the second-biggest Tamil hit of the year, behind Rajinikanth's Jailer. It is also the biggest-ever film of Vijay's career, and the third-biggest Tamil hit of all time at the global box office, where it has made Rs 537 crore, behind Jailer and 2.0. Leo is now in a tight race to topple Jailer's all-time global record of Rs 604 crore, but seeing the downward trajectory that it is on, this might prove to be a difficult task. The film is trailing Jailer by Rs 67 crore. Leo is a part of Lokesh's shared cinematic universe, called the LCU. The series also includes Karthi's Kaithi and Kamal Haasan's Vikram. Leo is the biggest installment of the series so far, but its mixed reviews appear to have held it back from delivering an even bigger haul. The LCU is rumoured to be continuing with Lokesh's mysterious new film, set to star Rajinikanth. If this turns out to be true, Lokesh will have pulled off one of the greatest casting coups in Tamil movie history, by uniting Rajinikanth, Vijay, Kamal Haasan in the same franchise.
