Rishab Shetty’s ‘Kantara Chapter 1’ beats Alia Bhatt’s ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’, storms to ₹225 crore globally

Mumbai: Rishab Shetty’s 'Kantara Chapter 1' is rewriting box office history. The period action drama has earned ₹162.85 crore net (₹195.50 crore gross) in India within its first three days, with a staggering ₹55 crore haul on Saturday alone — nearly 20% higher than Friday’s ₹46 crore.

The film has maintained extraordinary momentum, registering a phenomenal 94% occupancy for its Kannada version’s night shows on Saturday. The Hindi version has also performed strongly, collecting over ₹40 crore across India.

Overseas, 'Kantara Chapter 1' has brought in over $3 million (approximately ₹25 crore), pushing its worldwide total to a massive ₹225 crore in just three days.

The Rishab Shetty directorial has already surpassed the lifetime domestic collections of several recent big-budget releases, including Salman Khan’s Sikandar (₹176 crore), Ram Charan’s Game Changer (₹200 crore), and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi (₹210 crore).

The film is now eyeing the ₹250-crore mark, which trade experts say it will comfortably cross by Sunday afternoon.

A prequel to the 2022 blockbuster ‘Kantara’—which grossed over ₹400 crore on a ₹15 crore budget—‘Kantara Chapter 1’ is set a thousand years before the events of the first film.

Written, directed, and headlined by Rishab Shetty, the movie also stars Rukmini Vasanth, Jayaram, and Gulshan Devaiah.