Vijay's much-hyped Bigil is getting a thunderous response from the cine-goers in the US. The Tamil film is seeing the light of the day with premieres in about 150 locations in 250+ screens on Thursday, 24 October 6:30 pm EST (around 4 am in India, Friday morning) and has shown signs of becoming a big hit in North America.
Bigil has crossed $200,000-mark from the pre-sales of the premieres alone and trade trackers are predicting the total collection to be around $350,000-400,000. So far, it has collected $215,434 from 120 locations.
The Atlee Kumar-directorial will easily become the second highest premiere grosser after Rajinikanth's Petta, which minted $562,057, of 2019. Also, it would become the biggest premiere grosser in Vijay's career, beating his previous record of Mersal ($343,086).
Interestingly, Bigil is expected to shatter the lifetime collection of Ajith's Viswasam, which minted $273,519 in the US, from the sales of premieres alone. It has to be noted that the Telugu version of the Vijay-starrer is not hitting the screens now.
"Sorry #Whistle fans. Telugu version of the movie is not opening in USA this week. We will provide more updates about Telugu version soon, [sic]" Prime Media, which is distributing the movie in the US, tweeted.
Vijay is one of the few stars from Kollywood whose movies have consistently performed at the US box office. Check out the highest-grossing Thalapathy's movies in the US:
Mersal: $1,830,866
Sarkar: $1,011,237
Theri: $729,896
Kaththi: $624,591
Thuppakki: $422,019
Vijay's Bigil has Nayanthara in the female lead, while Jackie Shroff will be doing a negative character. It is a sports-drama about a gangster-turned-football coach who takes up the challenge of winning a medal for the state woman's football team in a tournament.
