Thug Life Movie Outshines Retro with Impressive Opening Collection

Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan’s much-anticipated film ‘Thug Life’, which features a star-studded cast including Simbu, Ashok Selvan, Trisha, Abhirami, and Aishwarya Lekshmi, reportedly collected only ?17 crore across India on its opening day. Despite being released in multiple languages—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi—on Thursday, the film failed to meet commercial expectations.

However, the film did not release in Karnataka due to opposition to Kamal Haasan’s earlier statements, which may have partly affected its box office outcome. It also did not attract significant attention from critics, limiting its word-of-mouth promotion.

Comparatively, Surya’s recent film ‘Retro’ earned ?19.25 crore on its opening day, surpassing ‘Thug Life’‘s collection. Despite heavy marketing around the Mani Ratnam-Kamal Haasan-Simbu collaboration, the film failed to achieve the expected opening day performance.

Looking at recent mass entertainers, Ajith’s ‘Good, Bad, Ugly’ and ‘Vida Muyarchi’ witnessed far better openings, collecting ?29.25 crore and ?27 crore respectively on day one in India. Globally, ‘Thug Life’ might see a slightly better performance, but for a film with a ?200+ crore budget, its domestic opening day collection is underwhelming.