Thug Life Turns into Major Box Office Disaster

The much-hyped film Thug Life, the second collaboration between Kamal Haasan and director Mani Ratnam, has turned into a massive box office failure, marking one of the biggest losses in recent Tamil cinema.

Despite an aggressive multi-language release—including Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, and Malayalam—and strong promotions in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the film fell flat. In the Telugu states, it grossed only around ?2 crore in its opening four-day weekend, leaving distributor Sresht Movies (owned by Sudhakar Reddy) with huge losses.

The Tamil version, expected to be the film’s stronghold, also disappointed severely, becoming one of the all-time disasters in Kollywood. This follows Kamal Haasan’s underwhelming Indian 2, marking back-to-back flops after his 2022 blockbuster Vikram.

Mani Ratnam, who faced criticism for uninspired storytelling, couldn’t salvage the project despite pre-release buzz. Although Thug Life reportedly recovered production costs via non-theatrical rights, it remains a theatrical debacle across all languages.