Rishab Shetty‘s heavily anticipated film, Kantara Chapter 1, is releasing in theatres this Thursday (October 2) on the occasion of Dussehra. The film is a prequel to Kantara, the 2021 blockbuster, and hence, carries a lot of buzz. The original film was a huge hit not just in Karnataka, but in north India as well. And the prequel seems to be going even bigger.

Kantara Chapter 1 advance booking

The advance booking for Kantara Chapter 1 opened on Sunday, four days before the film’s release. In a little over 24 hours, the pre-sales for day 1 have touched ₹5.7 crore gross, selling 1.7 lakh tickets already. This breakneck pace of ticket sales has already ensured that Kantara Chapter 1 will have a bigger opening than Kantara, which opened at just ₹2 crore in India back in 2022.

It’s still three days to go for the release of Kantara: Chapter 1, and the film is already outpacing the advance booking collections of recent big releases like Pawan Kalyan’s OG and Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR’s War 2. Neither of these films had touched ₹5 crore in advance bookings three days before the release. Kantara: Chapter 1 is also outperforming Yash’s KGF: Chapter 1 in pre-sales. The 2019 film was the highest-grossing Kannada film for three years, and the first from the language to cross ₹250 crore worldwide gross.

Kantara Chapter 1 should look to not just surpass but comfortably beat the ₹400-crore gross of the first Kantara, given its hype and scale. And it has taken a good start in that direction with healthy advance bookings. So far, the bulk of the sales have been in Kannada, but as more screens open up in the Hindi belt over Monday and Tuesday, the numbers should pick up. As of now, Kantara Chapter 1 has earned ₹36 lakh in advance bookings in Hindi, and just over ₹5 lakh in Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam combined. The rest of the collections have come in the original Kannada version.

All about Kantara Chapter 1

Written and directed by Rishab Shetty, Kantara Chapter 1 explores the origins of the mythology and story told in Kantara. Set ten centuries before the original film, Chapter 1 stars Rishab Shetty, but in a different role this time. Joining him in the cast are Rukmini Vasanth, Jayaram, and Gulshan Devaiah. The film releases across India on 2 October.