Thug Life box office collection day 1 early estimate: Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam’s latest collaboration Thug Life finally hit theatres on Thursday. Even after opening to poor reviews from critics and the audience, the film is off to a decent start at the box office. According to industry tracker Sacnilk, Thug Life has collected Rs. 13.25 crore in India, as of 9 pm on Thursday. Due to the negative response, the action-drama is unlikely to even surpass opening numbers (Rs 26 crore) of Haasan’s Indian 2, which was a disaster at the box office.
According to Sacnilk, Thug Life recorded an overall Tamil-language occupancy of 48.72% on Thursday. Morning shows saw 50.66% occupancy, afternoon shows registered 50.35%, and evening shows dipped to 45.15%. Pondicherry reported the highest occupancy so far at 69.33%.
The Mani Ratnam film is unlikely to rank in the biggest Tamil openers list of this year. Ajith Kumar’s Good Bad Ugly is the biggest Tamil opener of 2025 with Rs. 28.15 crore. The second spot belongs to Vidaamuyarchi at Rs. 25.5 crore, followed by Suriya’s Retro at Rs. 17.25 crore.
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Besides the poor reviews, Thug Life may also have been affected by the ban in Karnataka. The controversy around its ban originated after a statement made by Kamal Haasan during a promotional event. While addressing the audience, he had said, “Your language (Kannada) was born out of Tamil.” The actor’s remark offended many Kannadigas and led to strong reactions from several pro-Kannada groups. Haasan refused to apologise for his statement, which sparked a huge row, leading to the ban of the movie.
An excerpt from SCREEN’s Thug Life review read, “Mani Ratnam has delivered what is arguably his weakest film to date, the Kamal Haasan-starrer Thug Life. Worse still, the only way one could even identify it as a Mani Ratnam film is the grandiosity of its visuals and the occasional brilliance of its long shots. If not for these, Thug Life would have felt like an unending gangster drama, crafted by an overambitious filmmaker (anyone, really) whose only asset was ambition and nothing more.”
Directed by Mani Ratnam and produced by Raaj Kamal Films International and Madras Talkies, Thug Life also features Trisha Krishnan, T.R. Silambarasan, Abhirami, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Ashok Selvan, Joju George, Nassar, Ali Fazal, and Mahesh Manjrekar in pivotal roles.
