Prabhas and Maruthi’s The Raja Saab was expected to be a huge money spinner, but the film did not gather collections in that range and had a crash at the box office on its first Monday. Trade hopes that the horror comedy gets some help from the festival days.
The film opened with strong numbers, collecting ₹103 crore gross on Day 1. However, the film saw a sharp decline on Day 2 with ₹34 crore gross, followed by a further drop to ₹24 crore on Day 3. This brought the total weekend gross to ₹161 crore.
The film performed well in the Telugu states on Day 1 and Day 2. On Day 3, collections dropped in Telangana but remained fairly stable in Andhra Pradesh.
Day 4 proved difficult for the film. It was a pre-festival day and also the release day of Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu, which opened to unanimously positive word of mouth. This had a major impact on The Raja Saab, leading to a crash in collections on Monday, with single-digit gross figures.
With this, the total gross after four days stands at around ₹170 crore. The breakeven target is valued at over ₹400 crore, and the film has not even recovered 50% of that amount. Collections are expected to remain dull today as well. Tomorrow will be a crucial day, as the festival season begins.
Movie Name:Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi Rating: 2.5/5 Cast: Ravi Teja, Dimple Hayathi, Ashika Ranganath, Satya, Vennela Kishore and Others Director: Kishore Tirumala Produced By: Sudhakar Cherukuri Release Date: 13th January 2026
Ravi Teja comes up with Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi this Sankranthi, which is a romantic family enterainer. Starring Dimple Hayathi and Ashika Ranganath as the female leads, the film’s trailer and songs have received a positive response. Now let us see whether the film lives up to the hype in the following review.
Story:
Bhartha Mahasayulaki Wignyapthi revolves around Ram Satya Narayana, who is married to Balamani, a strict and devoted wife. Ram gets involved in an affair with Manasa when he travels to Spain to meet her under the pretext of a business proposal. The rest of the film focuses on how Ram deals with this situation and tries to resolve the conflict.
Performances:
Ravi Teja appears in a role that is different from his usual mass- or action-oriented characters. He manages to make a few moments work, but there is nothing groundbreaking or extraordinary about his performance.
Dimple Hayathi and Ashika Ranganath look beautiful on screen, but they get little scope to showcase their acting skills.
Vennela Kishore is decent in his sidekick role, while Sunil delivers some genuinely hilarious moments. Satya’s comedy does not make the desired impact except in one episode. Muralidhar Goud is underutilized. Child artist Rohan Roy and the rest of the cast perform adequately.
Analysis:
Kishore Tirumala directs the film, Bhartha Mahasayulaki Wignyapthi. It begins on a weak note, as the Spain episode fails to create much impact. Satya’s comedy scenes fall flat, and the romantic portions between Ravi Teja and Ashika Ranganath are also not very effective.
The narrative improves once the story shifts to India. A few scenes between Ravi Teja and Vennela Kishore work well, and an episode featuring Sunil stands out as particularly funny. The interval block is also handled nicely.
The second half has some enjoyable comedic moments, but the major conflict lacks the intrigue and excitement needed to keep the audience fully engaged. The pub song sequence has a good idea behind it, but it gets stretched.
Satya’s re-entry raises expectations, and the dumb charades sequence provides some fun. However, the climax, where the issue is resolved, feels plain and too convenient.
Positives:
Pre-Interval and Interval Episodes
Hotel Sequence
Satya Episode at the Pre-Climax
Negatives:
Initial Dull Moments
Inconsistent Screenplay
A Few Boring Scenes
Convenient Climax
Bhartha Mahaseyulaku Wignyapthi Review and Verdict:
Bhartha Mahasayulaki Wignyapthi presents Ravi Teja in a light-hearted role. While the film has a few well-made comedy blocks, it fails to raise the bar and remains at an ordinary level.
Megastar Chiranjeevi and Anil Ravipudi’s Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu, MSG had a blockbuster Day 1 at the box office, and the film’s collections’ estimates are out now. The evening and night shows have gone bonkers for the film.
The film had a super strong start at box office with occupancies getting increased continuously with each show, indicating a solid trend for the film. MSG sees the 2nd biggest opening for Chiranjeevi after Sye Ra Narasimha Reddy.
Blockbuster Day 1 for Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu
It collected 25 Cr gross from premieres and the 1st day estimates of Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu are more than 45 Cr worldwide which includes hire stations. Overall on the opening day the film sees close to 75 Cr gross start which is a sensational number.
With a breakeven value of ₹200 crore gross, more than 35% recovery has been done from the opening day itself, that too on a pre-festival weekday release. The film is all set to achieve breakeven by this festival week itself.
With Vikram, Lokesh Kanagaraj shook the Indian film industry by introducing the universe concept to Indian cinema, and though he faced some backlash for his recent films, his remuneration has not been affected and he also lands a big opportunity.
After Vikram, Lokesh emerged as the number one director in Tamil cinema and became one of the biggest brands in the industry. Because of his strong brand value, even though Leo and Coolie did not fully satisfy audiences, both films still collected more than ₹500 crore worldwide and became among the highest-grossing films in Kollywood.
Lokesh Kanagaraj remains in high demand and gets a massive remuneration for his upcoming project
After Coolie, he was expected to work on Kaithi 2, but he moved away from the project for unknown reasons. He also tried to set up another film with Rajinikanth, but that project did not materialise. Around the same time, Lokesh Kanagaraj received a big opportunity when Allu Arjun showed interest in working with him. According to industry buzz, Lokesh narrated the full script to Allu Arjun, who was impressed with it.
The film will be produced by Mythri Movie Makers. The latest buzz is that Lokesh Kanagaraj is charging the highest remuneration of his career for this project. He reportedly received ₹50 crore for Coolie, and for the Allu Arjun film, he is said to be charging around ₹75 crore.
The Raja Saab is doing an extremely disastrous performance in Hindi, which has shocked everyone. Prabhas has a good market in North India, but this film did not have any pre-release buzz, and the reviews were also not that great.
The film has collected 6 Cr nett on the opening day, and on day 2 it goes to 5 Cr, and on day 3 it goes to the 4 Cr range in India. With this, the film has no chance to do even 50 Cr nett in a full run.
With such a disastrous performance in Hindi, the team of The Raja Saab opted for the 92 rs ticket offer for the Hindi version in the 1st week itself. This offer will be valid for the 13th of January only, and that is exclusive for North India.
It is noteworthy that the Bollywood blockbuster Dhurandar chose this offer in its sixth week, while Prabhas’ The Raja Saab opted for it in its first week due to its disappointing box office collections.
There were some doubts on Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu’s release date and box office performance; with the Bhogi festival coming on Wednesday and the movie getting released on Monday, the trade expected a lot of concerns on the film’s opening.
Generally, weekday and pre-festival releases will definitely get impacted, but Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu clears all doubts as it receives an extraordinary opening day at the box office. The collections and occupancy showed a jump with each show.
Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu Set for a Massive Festival Weekend
This is a blockbuster trend, and that too, the film performing at such a level during the pre-festival period is a fantastic feat. It looks like a large number of special morning shows need to be allocated from the festival day to meet the demand.
From Wednesday to Sunday the movie will have massive collections and will see huge overflows in theaters.
Actress Krithi Shetty’s first Tamil film, Vaa Vaathiyaar, starring Karthi, has faced a lot of troubles, and finally, the film is getting released in theaters on January 14, 2026, as a Pongal gift for Tamil cinema audiences.
Krithi made a grand debut in Tollywood with Uppena but failed to maintain big stardom for a long time with continuous failures. After that, she put big hopes on Kollywood. Even though she received good offers and completed 3 films in the Tamil film industry, the films kept continuously postponing the release.
Can Krithi Shetty achieve success in Tamil cinema?
Karthi’s Vaa Vaathiyaar, Pradeep Ranganathan’s LIK, and Jayam Ravi’s Genie are all these three films. Kriti is the main lead, but the movie’s theatrical release has been continuously postponed.
Finally, Krithi Shetty’s first Tamil film, Vaa Vaathiyaar, is hitting theaters on 14th January, clearing all legal hurdles.
Initially, Prabhas wanted to do The Raja Saab as a small-budget film to compensate People’s Media Factory for the losses faced during the distribution of his previous films. The original idea was to make a simple horror entertainer with director Maruthi, similar to Prema Katha Chitram.
Horror entertainers usually take place in a house or one main location, so they do not need a big budget or long shooting schedules. Horror is also a universal genre that can work well across regions and languages.
The Raja Saab team made a major mistake by transforming it into a big-budget film.
But after the big success of Salaar and Kalki, the team got carried away. They decided to turn the project into a large-scale film, changing it from a simple horror entertainer into a horror fantasy. Some already-shot portions were even scrapped, and the project was restarted on a much bigger scale. This decision turned out to be a major mistake.
Had The Raja Saab been made as a simple horror entertainer with a small-budget, it could have worked well in all languages without the need for grand visuals or huge scale. But because of this change in approach, the budget increased, shooting days increased, and the film’s finances went out of control.
Maruthi Failed to Handle the Big Idea with The Raja Saab
The story also suffered in the process. Maruthi struggled to handle such a complex and large-scale project. If the film had remained a simple horror entertainer, which is his strength, he could have delivered a much better result. One wrong decision ended up putting the entire project at risk.
The concepts of hallucination and hypnotism, along with the climax featuring a mind game between the hero and his grandfather’s ghost, held promise but ultimately failed to resonate with audiences due to poor execution.
A tragic incident occurred amid the blockbuster celebrations of Megastar Chiranjeevi’s latest film, Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu, as a man reportedly died of a heart attack while watching the movie at Arjun Theatre in Kukatpally, Hyderabad.
The incident took place on Monday during the film’s screening, when the theatre was filled with enthusiastic fans. According to initial reports, the man suddenly collapsed inside the theatre in which Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu was being screened. Despite immediate efforts, he showed no response.
The theatre staff alerted the police, who arrived at the spot soon after. Police suspect that the man died due to a cardiac arrest. Further investigation is currently underway, and the exact cause of death will be confirmed after the post-mortem report is released.
The sudden tragedy cast a shadow over the otherwise celebratory atmosphere surrounding the film’s release.
Despite Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu’s premieres getting screened yesterday, the 1st weekend of The Raja Saab ended on a decent note, as the film was able to gather considerable numbers in Telugu states on Sunday.
Here are the details of The Raja Saab 1st Weekend Gross Collections
Andhra(6 Territories) : 45 Cr
Telangana: 38 Cr
Ceeded : 12 Cr
Karnataka: 13 Cr
TN+Kerala: 3 Cr
ROI : 19 Cr
Overseas: 31 Cr ($3.45M)
Worldwide: 161 Cr
As said above, the Andhra and Telangana states did provide some respectable numbers for The Raja Saab in the 1st weekend despite below-par WOM and reviews, whereas the rest of India and overseas areas were very poor.
Overall, the film sees a below-par weekend with just 40% recovery, and it needs a super strong festival week to get the much-required recovery for buyers. Let us wait and watch how the film fare at the box office in the coming days.
