Thirteen days into its run, the sports drama has already beaten the state tally of Dhanush's Raayan and trails only Suriya's Karuppu among recent hits.
Soori has spent most of his career getting laughs in the corner of the frame. Right now he's outgrossing two of Tamil cinema's biggest names in their own home state.
Mandaadi, which opened on September 10 against Karthi's Sardar 2, has pulled in Rs 67.05 crore in Tamil Nadu alone in 13 days. According to trade estimates, that number puts it ahead of every Suriya film released lately except Karuppu, which did Rs 158.03 crore in the state. It's also ahead of every Dhanush film barring Raayan, which sits at Rs 74.07 crore in Tamil Nadu. Mandaadi is closing that gap fast and looks set to get past it too.
Worldwide, the film has now crossed Rs 110 crore. The domestic net stands at Rs 79.9 crore, which works out to a gross of Rs 94.28 crore, and overseas collections add another Rs 15.85 crore. None of that overseas number is doing much heavy lifting though. Mandaadi barely opened outside India, so almost the entire haul has come from screens at home.
The daily numbers have cooled off from the opening weekend, as they always do. On its second Tuesday the film added Rs 1.9 crore net off 3,400 screens, a fraction of what it made in its first few days. But the drop hasn't stopped it from clearing the 100 crore mark in under a week and holding that lead through a second week against a film headlined by one of Tamil cinema's most bankable stars.
A late arrival at the top
Soori only started getting lead roles after the pandemic, with Viduthalai Part 1 marking the shift. Before that he was strictly comic relief, the guy who turns up to lighten a scene between two heavier actors. That he's now outrunning the combined body of work of Suriya and Dhanush in Tamil Nadu, even if only against a chunk of their filmographies rather than their biggest hits, says something about how quickly that image has changed.
It also says something about what Tamil audiences are choosing to watch this month. Sardar 2 had the star power on paper. Mandaadi had a story people apparently wanted to sit through twice.
The film isn't done yet. Whether it eventually catches Raayan's Tamil Nadu number, and how much further the worldwide total climbs once the multiplex crowd thins out, will depend on how the third week holds up. For now, Soori has a box office story that neither Suriya nor Dhanush can currently match in their own state.
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