Ravi Teja’s Telugu action drama Irumudi is now in the phase of its run where the weekend does the earning and the weekdays do the reminding. On Day 18, the film netted an estimated Rs 2.40 crore in India from 1,964 shows, according to Sacnilk data cited by The Times of India — a 64.4% fall from its third Sunday take of Rs 6.75 crore.
That pushes the film’s India net to Rs 168.70 crore and India gross to Rs 196.05 crore. Add overseas — Rs 5 lakh on the day, Rs 22.15 crore cumulative — and the worldwide gross stands at Rs 218.20 crore.
The weekend-weekday gap is the real story
A 64% Monday drop sounds alarming until you look at the occupancy line. Sunday ran at 57.6% overall occupancy across 2,061 shows; Monday came in at 28.0% across 1,964. Show count barely moved. Footfalls halved. That is a textbook third-week pattern for a mass-market Telugu release: exhibitors are still holding screens because the weekend justifies them, but Monday-to-Thursday is now a thin, loyalist audience.
Within Day 18, the Telugu version logged 21.53% overall occupancy, split as:
- Morning shows: 18.38%
- Afternoon shows: 20.62%
- Evening shows: 22.92%
Evening skew this late in a run is normal, but the narrow spread — barely 4.5 points between the worst and best slot — suggests demand is flat rather than concentrated. There is no single slot carrying the day, which usually precedes a show-count cut.
Week-on-week: a clean decay curve
The trajectory has been orderly rather than dramatic. Week one delivered Rs 92.15 crore net. Week two added Rs 57.60 crore, a drop of roughly 37% — a healthy hold for a film of this scale. Mid-week two, the film was still doing Rs 4.10 crore on Wednesday (2,622 shows, 34.7% occupancy) and Rs 3.60 crore on Thursday (2,378 shows, 33.6%).
Compare that to Day 18’s Rs 2.40 crore and 28.0%, and the picture is a film that has retained its core audience but stopped recruiting new ones. Week three will land well below Rs 20 crore on this trend.
APTG is doing almost all the work
The state-wise split on Day 18 is instructive for anyone planning regional spends. Of the Rs 2.75 crore day gross:
- Andhra Pradesh and Telangana: Rs 2.50 crore
- Karnataka: Rs 20 lakh
- Tamil Nadu: Rs 1 lakh
- Rest of India: Rs 4 lakh
That is roughly 91% of the day’s gross from the home market. Overseas contributing Rs 5 lakh on the day against a Rs 22.15 crore cumulative tells the same story from the other end: the international run is effectively over, front-loaded into the first ten days.
What this means for the business
For distributors and exhibitors, the signal is that screen rationalisation is due. Holding 1,964 shows for a 28% occupancy day is a cost decision that only makes sense if the next weekend can still pull 50%-plus — and with each passing week that gets harder.
For streaming buyers and marketers, a Rs 218 crore worldwide gross with an overwhelmingly APTG-weighted footprint sets a clear expectation for the digital window: strong Telugu-market viewership, modest dubbed traction elsewhere. Platforms pricing a post-theatrical deal should read the state-wise split, not the headline number.
For media planners, the practical takeaway is timing. In-cinema and around-film digital inventory for a title like this is worth most in the first 10-12 days. By Day 18, reach per show has collapsed even as the show count holds — a mismatch that quietly inflates effective CPMs if you are still buying on show counts rather than footfalls.
Note: box office figures here are industry estimates compiled from public sources and may be revised.
Source: The Times of India
