Vijay in Mersal
The advance booking for Vijay's Mersal begins.PR Handout

Vijay has expanded his market with Mersal after the Atlee Kumar-directorial went on to do a record business at the worldwide box office. The Ilayathalapathy's film has become his first flick to breach Rs 250-crore mark.

Going by the trade reports, Mersal has crossed Rs 250-crore mark on Tuesday, November 21. It has now become the fifth south Indian movie to achieve this feat after Enthiran – The Robot (2010), Baahubali 1 (2015), Kabali (2016) and Baahubali 2 (2017).

He is the third actor to register his name in the elite club after Rajinikanth and Prabhas.

Baahubali 2 has occupied the first place in the highest-grossing south Indian movies by earning more than Rs 1,700 crore and its first instalment Baahubali (over Rs 600 crore) is in the second position. Enthiran (around Rs 290 crore) and Kabali (around Rs 286 crore) are in the next two places.

Coming back to Mersal collections, the movie has minted over Rs 120 crore in Tamil Nadu alone. It grossed over Rs 16 crore in Kerala and Rs 13 crore in Karnataka, while in other parts of India, it has collected Rs 15 crore.

The overseas centres have contributed the remaining amount.

Mersal is the 100th film produced by Sri Thenandal Films. The Tamil movie has Kajal Aggarwal, Samantha and Nithya Menen in the female leads.

It has been dubbed into Telugu with the title Adirindi.

Controversy turned a blessing
The controversy created by the Tamil Nadu BJP came as a boon to Mersal as it helped the movie garner national headlines. People who would have otherwise had second thoughts about watching the film apparently decided to watch the Vijay-starrer after the controversy broke. Indeed, it gave free publicity to the Atlee Kumar directorial.

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