Telugu movie "Karthikeya" starring Nikhil Siddhartha and Swathi Reddy in the leads, has fetched good collection at the worldwide box office in the first weekend and landed in the third place. "Happy New Year" and "Kaththi" graced the first and second positions respectively.
Produced by Venkat Srinivas, "Karthikeya" is one of the most-talked about and much-awaited medium-budget Telugu movies of the year 2014. Due to the release of biggies such as Shah Rukh Khan's "Happy New Year" and Vijay's "Kaththi", the Nikhil and Swathi starrer did not get good amount of theatres inside as well as outside Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Including 37 screens in the USA, "Karthikeya" released in around 250 screens across the globe on 24 October. Considering the hype and promotions of "Happy New Year" and "Kaththi", trade analysts in Film Nagar predicted that the Telugu movie would suffer severe setback at the box office, but to everyone's surprise, the film opened to a superb response at the ticket counters across the globe.
"Karthikeya" registered an average of 50%+ occupancy in both single screens and multiplexes in the morning show on the first day. The movie got positive responses from both film critics and movie buffs. A strong word of mouth took its business upwards in the afternoon and evening shows on its opening day. The film fetched decent numbers at the Indian box office on the first day.
The business of "Karthikeya" further improved on Saturday and Sunday. It has raked in approximately ₹2.35 crore at the Indian box office in the first weekend. The movie also got good opening in America and showed decent growth in the following days. In the first weekend, the film collected ₹75.64 lakhs [$123,512] at the USA box office, taking its three-day-global total to ₹3.10 crore nett.
Made on a budget of ₹6 crore, "Karthikeya" has recovered 50%+ of its production cost from its theatrical run for three days. Due to working day, the movie has witnessed sharp fall in its business on Monday. On weekdays, the film is expected to rake in around ₹1.75 crore, taking its first week collection to ₹4.85 crore.
