Rishab Shetty’s Kantara: Chapter 1 may have started with modest advance bookings, but the film has quickly turned into a massive box office success, fueled by strong word of mouth. The action drama is now on the verge of crossing the ₹400 crore global milestone within just a few days. Remarkably, its first Monday numbers surpassed the opening day earnings of Salman Khan’s Sikandar (2025), which had collected ₹26 crore in India.

According to early estimates from industry tracker Sacnilk, Kantara 2 earned ₹31.25 crore nett in India on October 6, pushing its five-day domestic total to ₹256.5 crore. This figure represents a 50.40% drop from Sunday’s ₹63 crore, yet it still outperformed other major 2025 releases like Chhaava (₹24 crore), Saiyaara (₹24 crore), and Coolie (₹12 crore) on their first Mondays. Even more impressively, the film’s Monday business was 10 times higher than Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor’s Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari (₹3 crore) and 19 times bigger than Dhanush’s Idli Kadai (₹1.6 crore), both of which released the same weekend.

Breaking down the numbers further, the Kannada version contributed ₹11.5 crore on Monday, followed by ₹8.75 crore from the Hindi edition and ₹5.5 crore from the Telugu release. The Tamil and Malayalam versions added ₹2.75 crore each. In its home state, the movie enjoyed an average occupancy of 72.70%, which started at 41.91% in morning shows and steadily grew through the day, peaking at nearly 90% for night screenings. Its worldwide gross has now climbed to ₹362.75 crore.

Serving as a prequel to the 2022 blockbuster Kantara, the film stars Rukmini Vasanth, Jayaram, and Gulshan Devaiah in key roles alongside Rishab Shetty. Made on a reported budget of ₹125 crore — significantly higher than the first film’s ₹16 crore — the sequel is well on track to outdo the original’s lifetime global earnings of ₹407.82 crore within its first 10 days.