With one day left before its Wednesday opening, the action thriller has already booked the widest release of Nani's career and cracked the top five advance-sales list of 2026.
Nani has never opened this wide. The Paradise goes out on 7,214 shows across the country for its September 24 release, comfortably past the 5,705 shows Dasara ran on, making this the biggest theatrical spread the Natural Star has ever had.
The advance booking numbers are moving just as fast. As of 1:30 pm IST on Tuesday, a day before release, the film had sold 7.71 lakh tickets, not counting blocked seats, according to Koimoi's box office tracking. That converts to a gross of Rs 16.42 crore from pre-sales alone, or Rs 13.92 crore net, and the window for buyers to keep booking hasn't even closed yet.
That number is enough to push The Paradise into the top five day-one advance bookings among Indian films in 2026. It has gone past Prabhas' The RajaSaab, which had opened its account at Rs 15.31 crore, to take the fifth spot on that list. Koimoi's report notes the film is on course to overtake Ram Charan's Peddi, currently sitting at Rs 20.66 crore, once the final pre-sale tally comes in.
None of this is final. Distributors typically keep adding shows in the last 24 hours before release, so both the show count and the ticket numbers are likely to climb further before Wednesday morning. What's already clear is that the appetite for this one built steadily from the first teaser onward, and it hasn't cooled off the way some big-ticket openers do once the initial noise settles.
The pressure now shifts to the film itself. Big advances buy a strong first day, they don't buy a strong second one. If word of mouth holds up through Wednesday's first shows, The Paradise is looking at a genuinely massive opening weekend by 2026 standards. If it doesn't, the pre-sale cushion won't count for much beyond day one, and trade watchers will be quick to point that out.
For context, this advance run already sits above what several major 2026 Indian releases managed on their opening day combined pre-sales, and it does so a full day before the film has even hit screens. The real test starts Wednesday, when audience reaction rather than booking-window enthusiasm decides where the film's opening weekend eventually lands. Final day-one numbers, including the last push of bookings through Tuesday night, should be out by Wednesday morning.
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