Ashwin Kumar’s mythological animated film Mahavatar Narsimha has piqued the interest of audiences. The animated film, backed by Kleem Productions and presented by Hombale Films, is on the verge of crossing Rs 100 crore at the domestic box office in just 11 days.
Mahavatar Narsimha earned Rs 8 crore on its second Monday (day 11), which is much more than what last week’s releases — Ajay Devgn’s action comedy Son of Sardaar 2 (Rs 2.25 crore) and Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri-starrer romantic drama Dhadak 2 (Rs 1.4 crore) made on the same day. It’s also higher than what Mohit Suri’s romantic juggernaut Saiyaara, starring newcomers Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, earned on its third Monday (Rs 2.5 crore).
As per Sacnilk, the current box office collection of Mahavatar Narsimha in India stands at Rs 99.25 crore. Thus, it’s most likely that the film will cross the milestone of Rs 100 crore today, becoming the first Indian animated film to achieve the feat in the process. This figure includes earnings from all languages — with the lion’s share belonging to the Hindi version, followed by Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam.
It helps that Hombale Films, which has been the force behind pan-India Kannada box office hits like the KGF franchise and Kantara, is backing not only Mahavatar Narshimha, but also the next six films of the seven-part Mahavatar Cinematic Universe that Kleem Productions has envisioned. Each instalment will tell the story of a new avatar of Lord Vishnu.
Mahavatar Narsimha revolves around the story of Vishnu’s incarnation Narsimha, a part-man, part-lion creature, invoked by devotee Prahlada to assassinate King Hirankashyap, who enjoys Lord Brahma’s boon of immunity from any kind of death. Prior to this film, the highest grossing animated film from India was VG Samant’s Hanuman (2005), based on Lord Hanuman, which earned only Rs 11.68 crore at the worldwide box office.
By crossing the Rs 100 crore mark, Mahavatar Narsimha has also surpassed the lifetime earnings of this year’s films like Rajkummar Rao-starrer romantic comedy Bhool Chuk Maaf (Rs 74.81 crore), Sunny Deol’s action film Jaat (Rs 90.34 crore), and Akshay Kumar’s period courtroom drama Kesari 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh (Rs 94.48 crore).
Also Read — Mahavatar Narsimha movie review: Epic in scale, uneven in execution
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In an exclusive interview with SCREEN, Mahavatar Narsimha director Ashwin Kumar said he believes Indian mythology isn’t fictional, but the country’s own rich history. “Mythology’ is a Greek term which comes from ‘mythos,’ which means mithya in Sanskrit. Mithya means concocted. I do not feel, in any which way, that we have a concocted past. We have a very strong past. We should celebrate that past, the puranic tales of Bharat. Our puranic tales are very long, deep, and rooted in history,” he said, adding, “It’s about time we access those, feel proud, and build universes for future generations. It’s very apparent that it wasn’t done that well in the past, but it’s about time that we do it now in the way it should be done.”
