Kranti box office: Rs 109 crore success is a sum of theatrical and non-theatrical revenue?

Last evening, the team of Challenging Star Darshan’s latest film, Kranti, had a success meet. In the presence of select media and social media influencers – only those who have done positive publicity for the film – producer Shylaja Nag led the team to declare that the film has done phenomenal business and joined the cast and crew to cut a cake that was designed as a celebration of its Rs 109 crore business.

Normally, discussions surrounding the 100, 200, 300… etc., crore club reflect a film’s box office performance only. All non-theatrical revenue is separate and not bandied about. The true show of a film’s success is how well it does in theatres, with or without hiked ticket pricing, like, for instance, in the case of KGF: Chapter 2 and Kranti. While Vikrant Rona had also made tall claims, much of it was later dispelled. Even Rakshit Shetty’s 777 Charlie mustered just over Rs 100 crore, with the non-theatrical revenue taking it to Rs 150-crore odd over its entire lifetime.

Now, let’s look at Kranti’s road to the ‘Rs 100-crore club’. According to www.sacnilk.com, one of the most trusted box office trackers, in its 8-days at the box office so far, Kranti has accumulated a net collection of Rs 33 crore only (pan India), with forecasts for day 9 at just over Rs 1 crore. It must be noted that Kranti was widely released across Karnataka, with a limited outing in rest of India and no overseas business. The dubbed versions in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi have also not been released theatrically. So, how is it that Shylaja declared her film a massive hit?

According to an industry tracker, Kranti’s satellite and digital rights went for Rs 29.5 crore (Rs 12 crore for Udaya TV and Rs 17.5 from Amazon Prime Video for rights to the film in all five languages, respectively). Another Rs 11 crore has apparently come in from the Hindi dubbing rights sale. Since the audio rights are held by dBeats, which Shylaja co-owns with director-composer V Harikrishna, an estimated Rs 5 crore is expected on that front. All of this does not add up to Rs 109 crore, but that is the claim at the moment, substantiated only by a cake.

Darshan detractors, of course, are having a field day about the ‘inflated’ numbers and have been asking the team to provide proof for their claim of having made Rs 109 crore in only a week, especially since the film has had rapidly declining occupancy in theatres from day 2 itself. #GoGreen was the trend for Kranti, based on the empty movie halls and availability of tickets on booking sites.