The hugely hyped Telugu movie, 1:
Nenokkadine, released in theatres of Andhra Pradesh, around India and in the US on the 10th of January in the year 2014. The psychological thriller, starring Telugu heartthrob, Mahesh Babu, along with Kelly Dorjee, Kriti Shannon, Nassar, Vikram and ShayajiShinde, was expected to surpass Rs. 50 crore, in the first week, but unfortunately in failed to live up to this expectation of emerging as the highest grossing Telugu film in the first week. Though there was a large number of advance booking of tickets, the film, in its first week, has not been able to collect even half of the investment. On the first day, the collected Rs. 8.33 crore on the opening day, and a total of Rs. 23.73 crores in the first week in Andhra Pradesh, and Rs. 3.90 in the rest of India. Although the film has failed to do well in the first week in Andhra Pradesh, the analysts are saying that it has received overwhelming response from the overseas market, based on its collections from the theatres in the United States. It raked a whopping $226,278 from 73 locations of the US premiere, and its collection from 90 locations of US on Friday was reported to be $310,579. On Saturday, it raked $264,355 and on Sunday, $143,044. The total US collection of the film in the first week was $1,046,773 (more than 1 million), or Rs. 6.4 crore, accounting for a gross share of Rs. 4.16 crore. The total US weekend collection was $946,552 orRs. 5.82 crore, with the reports from some of the screens still pending. This is still lower than Mahesh Babu’sSeethammaVakitloSirimalleChettu, a Pongal release of last year, which managed to collect Rs. 8.02 crore from the overseas market in the first week, though it has also managed to outperform other Mahesh starrer films like Jillia and Veeram. Its net overseas collection for the first week was Rs. 7.25 crores. Its total worldwide collection has been reported as Rs. 34.88 crore.
However in Andhra Pradesh, its collection is quite poor for a film that was made with a budget of Rs. 70 crore. Since Mahesh Babu has a special hold in the overseas market, the film has managed to do so well. The film about a man in search of revenge from the killers of his parents, has been produced by 14 Reels Entertainment and directed by B. Sukumar. It is a particular misfortune that even though the film was released with the Sankranthi holidays in mind, these holidays failed to make any contribution to the collection of the movie, though it was expected to be one of the biggest box office hits of the Telugu industry.
Earlier, the film landed in a lot of controversy when, during its pre-release promotions, a poster was released showing Mahesh Babu walking on the beach, and his heroine crawling on all fours behind him, like a dog. Actress Samantha, without mentioning the name of the film, had Tweeted that she had seen the poster of a yet to be released Telugu film which she found to be regressive, since it reflected women as the slave of men. This attracted a lot of furore from the fans of Mahesh Babu, but at the same time, some of the fans and supporters of Samantha also agreed to her. Whether all this controversy or words of mouth has affected the film’s collections is definitely a plaguing question in the industry at the moment.