Akhil Akkineni's Hello got a brilliant opening at the US box office and made better collections than Nani's MCA aka Middle Class Abbayi on Friday. It is likely to overtake the latter in the first week.
MCA and Hello are among the most-hyped and highly promoted Telugu movies of 2017. Nani has a good fan base in North America, and his movie was expected to do well in the country. On the other hand, Akhil Akkineni toured the country to promote his film a week before its release. Baahubali actor Rana Daggubati's presence at its publicity events garnered a lot of attention for the movie.
The Dil Raju-produced movie premiered in the country on Wednesday and registered very good response there. MCA collected $297,428 from 132 locations at the US box office in the preview shows and shattered the records of Nani's previous biggest releases Nenu Local ($160,000) and Ninnu Kori ($159,000). The movie also got the ninth-biggest opening for a Tollywood film in 2017.
But the Nani-starrer received mixed talk from the audience, which took a toll on its collection on Thursday. Its business was also partially affected by Hello, which premiered that day. Its collection further dropped on Friday. The film grossed $117,689 on Thursday and $107,712 on Friday.
MCA collected a total of $529,382 at the US box office in two days. As per current trends, the movie was set to gross more than $270,000 over the weekend, taking its opening weekend total to $800,000 in the country.
On the other hand, the Akhil Akkineni-starrer premiered in North America on December 21 and got superb response. Hello collected $210,840 from 140 locations at the US box office in the preview shows. In just one day, the movie shattered the lifetime collection record of his debut film Akhil: The Power of Jua in the US, which had raked in $168,544 there in its entire run.
The Vikram Kumar-directed film received positive response from viewers, which kept it rock-steady on Friday. Hello collected $150,670 from 139 locations at the US box office on the first day, taking its total collection to $361,510.
As per its current trends, Hello is likely to rake in $350,000 in the next two days and conclude its opening weekend with a total of $700,000. The movie is expected to overtake MCA on the weekdays.
