THE KERALA STORY 2: GOES BEYOND released late on Friday after getting the clearance from the courts which was always going to happen as there was not an issue once the censor had passed the film. But it was about whether the clearance come quick enough to allow release this week. The film managed to get screenings going late on Friday and did around 50-60 lakhs nett and its mainly about what happens today.

THE KERALA STORY (2023) was a huge HIT crossing the 200 crore nett mark and one of the biggest HITS ever if we count the smaller films only. The film found a huge audience as conservative Hindu families watched films in numbers and the female count was reported to be high for the film. The subject matter of the film made it a must for this audience to watch the film with their family and especially take the females of the family.

The film here seems to be on the same subject matter going by the trailer and that could be a problem as the same audience may not come out again to watch again as the first film was seen like an education lesson and that lesson is probably done. The film is low budget and just the name will get some audience in. However, its not like a sequel of a regular genre (action, comedy etc) when you can expect anything like the earlier film or films. The limited shows on Friday night saw a fair response and the film can do well as per its budget with the first film being a one off and not comparable.

The repeat run of TERE NAAM did around 20 lakhs nett on first day which is an okay number but better than the repeat runs seen in the recent times. If there is an audience, the film can run well from here but repeat run business is generally for the bigger centres while TERE NAAM was more liked in the smaller centres when it was released in 2003.

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THE KERALA STORY 2: GOES BEYOND collected 4.25 crore nett on its first day which is a fair collection. If it was a Friday it would have been a good collection but it could not be released due to court issues from the southern state of Kerala. THE KERALA STORY (2023) had better figures as it opened with 6.75 crore nett but that is a one off and cant really be the comparison.

If you compare with that then the figures are not good but if you take the costs of the film and the film getting a 4 crore day one collections even if it comes on Saturday, its a good number. Although it might be a sequel of a film which did 220 crore nett eventually, its about the costs and if a film like this gets a 10-12 crore share, its enough to cover the costs.

The film has fared well in Mumbai circuit which has been trend of these type of films which are negative to a certain community and another circuit which tends to do well is Mysore and its no different here. Mysore is known as circuit with a gentry audience but tends to do well for these types post pandemic. The collections in North India are lower and below the mark. The total collections of THE KERALA STORY 2: GOES BEYOND are almost 5 crore nett up on the board if you add the Friday collections. It has the T20 match to contend with on Sunday. As a result, the growth will be limited if any.

The repeat run of TERE NAAM added 25 lakhs nett on Saturday taking its two day total to 45 lakhs nett. These are decent numbers as repeats have not seen much collections in recent times and on top, TERE NAAM is not that big city multiplex type of film which has scored in re runs post pandemic.

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THE KERALA STORY 2: GOES BEYOND collected 9 crore nett over its first weekend which was curtailed due to limited collections on the first day due to a late release. The film managed to get 4 crore nett collections on Saturday and Sunday which is decent though overall weekend total is hit by the Friday having hardly any collections.

It remains to be seen how the film goes over the weekdays and even though its just a two day weekend, the drop will come on Monday as its a working day but if the film can hold at around 50% of Saturday and Sunday it should enable the film to run till Eid. The fair value for day one is probably around the 2.75 crore nett mark if we go by the collections over the weekend. This means it would have had a 11 crore nett weekend if it was normal release.

The film has done best in Mumbai which is almost 4 crore nett and more than 40% of the total collections. Both Maharashtra and Gujarat have collected well and Mysore also has down well though the rest of the country has seen collections on the lower side.

The collections of THE KERALA STORY 2: GOES BEYOND are as follows.

Friday - 60,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 4,25,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 4,15,00,000 apprx

The repeat run of TERE NAAM collected 75 lakhs nett apprx over three days and its a reasonable collection and the Sunday collections mean it should get some decent collections over the weekdays also.

The collections of TERE NAAM (repeat run) are as follows.

Friday - 20,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 25,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 30,00,000 apprx

BORDER 2 has collected 435 crore worldwide and will probably add another 3-5 crore from here to finish at 440 crore. The overseas performance is very good in Australia and Canada and good in UK. The business in USA is average and could have been better as here its stayed below the collections of GADAR 2 while the other markets will beat the numbers of the 2023 film.

The business of GADAR 2 in overseas was $7.5 million. BORDER 2 has collected less but this is without the Gulf market where GADAR 2 did $1.3 million. So, if you add that, it becomes a similar total for Overseas. Technically this makes the Overseas performance better than India with the GADAR 2 comparison as India will be 40% less than GADAR 2.

In overseas it will be among the top five films of 2025/26 with only DHURANDHAR, SAIYAARA, CHHAAVA and SITAARE ZAMEEN PAR recording higher collections. BORDER 2 now makes it to the list of twenty original Hindi films to cross 400 crore worldwide, the first being DHOOM 3 in 2013. 

The worldwide collections of BORDER 2 till date are as follows.

India -  379 crore (312.50 crore nett)

Overseas -  56.50 crore ($6.25 million)

DO DEEWANE SEHER MEIN fell on Monday with collections of 50 lakh apprx which takes the film to 4.50 crore nett. The first week is probably looking to collect around 5.75 crore nett with a lifetime of 10 crore nett looking pretty much impossible especially with this Monday trend.

The other release, ASSI, also collected 50 lakhs nett on Monday but its a better hold than DEEWANE SEHER MEIN, which should mean a better lifetime total than that film. Yet, here a 10 crore nett lifetime total looks difficult though if one of these films is to reach that mark, it will be this one.

The collections of ASSI till date are as follows.

Friday - 1,00,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 1,60,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 1,50,00,000 apprx

Monday - 50,00,000 apprx

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DO DEEWANE SEHER MEIN collected 5.75 crore nett in its first week with collections coming down badly on the weekdays after a dull start. There will be little coming for the film from here and its a dud. The first week is a little better than last week's TU YAA MAIN, though the second week may not be looking at the trend on the weekdays.

ASSI has also fared poorly though better than DO DEEWANE SEHER MEIN as weekdays hold up better but that is just a comparison with the competition and the film itself is also a dud. The first week collections here are around 6.25 crore nett. Despite little competition this week, the 10 crore nett mark still looks a struggle.

The collections of ASSI till date are as follows.

Friday - 1,00,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 1,60,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 1,50,00,000 apprx

Monday - 50,00,000 apprx

Tuesday - 65,00,000 apprx

Wednesday - 50,00,000 apprx 

Thursday - 45,00,000 apprx

O'ROMEO continued its poor run on its second Monday collecting a little over 1 crore nett and the film is still yet to hit 50 crore nett. The film is said to be action/thriller type of film but its turning out out be a comedy within the industry as these 100 crore worldwide posters do the rounds like they do for the South films. The fact is that the film has had the buy one get one free offer more or less everyday since release and its probably this offer that has squeezed the film into the FLOP category. Otherwise, it would probably have been a DISASTER. It has outright rejection from the paying public.

The numbers for O'ROMEO till date are as follows.

Friday - 7,50,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 11,00,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 8,25,00,000 apprx

Monday - 4,25,00,000 apprx

Tuesday - 4,25,00,000 apprx

Wednesday - 2,75,00,000 apprx

Thursday - 2,00,00,000 apprx

Friday - 1,75,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 2,75,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 2,75,00,000 apprx

Monday - 1,15,00,000 apprx

TU YAA MAIN has collected 5.25 crore nett plus in ten days 

The collections of TU YAA MAIN are as follows.

Friday - 50,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 1,35,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 75,00,000 apprx

Monday - 40,00,000 apprx

Tuesday - 45,00,000 apprx

Wednesday - 35,00,000 apprx

Thursday - 30,00,000 apprx

Friday - 25,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 40,00,000 apprx

Sunday - 40,00,000 apprx

Monday - 15,00,000 apprx

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O'ROMEO has fared poorly on Overseas as well as it looks to end its business somewhere around the $2.5 million mark. Like India, Overseas saw a big fall in the second weekend coming from a very so so first weekend. The film will do less than KAMINEY (2009) but more than HAIDER (2014) as far as the overseas market goes. But this is a comparison in terms of the names concerned in the films only as the costs of O'ROMEO are far far higher than those films.

The business is low in all overseas markets though US/Canada will be best where it should cross the $1 million mark. The worldwide figure is around 80 crore in 12 days and the 100 crore mark looks out of reach considering the level of collections at present. It has to be noted that the India business is coming with a consistent Buy One Get One Free Offer since release and its even on at the moment which has probably given the collections a 8-10% boost. Takes this out and the film could have ended up with a final total under 50 crore nett.

The worldwide collections of O'ROMEO till date are as follows. 

India -  60 crore (49.75 crore nett)

Overseas -  20 crore ($2.20 million)

Days after securing interim bail in a Rs. 9 crore loan case, actor-comedian Rajpal Yadav addressed the media in Mumbai on Saturday. He arrived with his lawyer, Bhaskar Upadhyay, and spoke about the scale of his upcoming work: “Over the next seven years, I have branding projects valued at Rs. 1,200 crore. I’ve secured four agreements, which don’t include films. Some of these projects are worth Rs. 200 crore, while others go up to Rs. 2,000 crore. The income is a mix of fees and equity. I also have 10 films lined up.”

Addressing the ongoing legal dispute, Rajpal described the agreement as a “ghar ka maamla” (a personal matter) based on trust.

“When the deal happened, Bhaskar ji wasn’t in the picture. I have worked in over 250 films. If I look back, every contract will have some loophole. I never imagined this would reach court. This fight is an ego clash. The person wants me to fall at his feet in return for Rs. 5 crore. If it was about money, I have been ready to pay since 2013,” he said. The actor admitted he “signed documents without reading” them.

The dispute dates back to 2010, when Rajpal took a Rs. 5 crore loan from Delhi-based Murali Projects Pvt Ltd to finance his directorial debut Ata Pata Laapata (2012). After the film failed, repayment issues followed. In April 2018, a Magisterial Court convicted Rajpal and his wife Radha under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act after seven cheques bounced. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, a conviction later upheld by a Sessions Court in 2019.

In October 2025, the court noted that while Rajpal had deposited Rs. 75 lakh, most of the liability remained unpaid. He surrendered at Tihar Jail on February 5 after the Delhi High Court declined further relief in the long-pending cheque bounce case. He has since been granted interim bail till March 18.

Actor Jatin Sarna, best known for the web series The Sacred Games and film Sikandar (2025) is set to star opposite Rajinikanth in the upcoming film Jailer 2. The actor says he feels blessed to be working with the superstar for the second time after Darbar (2020).

Calling it “a manifestation that played 2x,” Jatin says, “Many won’t believe but it’s true that for years, I have had Rajinikanth sir’s framed photo from the movie Kaala (2018) above the door in my living room where it’s written ‘Kya Re’. For me, he has been an inspiration.”

Speaking about how it felt to work with his childhood dream actor, the 41-year-old shares, “I grew up watching him and have so many memories attached to Rajini sir. The bright side is, I got great exposure in the South Indian industry. I learnt and spoke Tamil. Much to my surprise, I got a compliment that I was able to adapt to it.”

When asked whether he will also be sharing screen space with Shah Rukh Khan, who is rumoured to have a role in the film, Jatin says, “I have wrapped my shoot and I am not aware of any such development.”

Bold, fearless, bindaas: few in the industry can be summed up like this. Actor Taapsee Pannu embodies these traits both off and on the screen. She talks about what works and how she functions, with her recent film Assi spotlighting the sensitive subject of rape. Excerpts from her chat on The Right Angle with Sonal Kalra:

If people like to watch violence on screen, let’s not demarcate it as ‘this violence is okay, but this violence is not’. We all enjoy big films, but all types of cinema have their own palate.

If one decides to only watch a certain kind of films, our cinema will start looking like a template. Then we as an industry will not be able to produce the kind of variety we are capable of.

There is also a notion people have about a film being okay to watch on OTT, but not in theatres. But the reality is that OTTs also don’t want films that are not big-scale event-based. Their mandates clearly state that they only want films that are box office successes. Soon, there will be a time when movies like Assi will not be released even on OTT platforms.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. MTV is going nowhere. Last year, Paramount Global announced that in some countries, the channel will stop broadcasting by December 25. Millennials around the world dropped their TV remote in panic. Turns out, the company was referring only to sub-channels such as MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live. Regular MTV continues, in India too, though we’re not sure who’s really watching.

The channel has been playing here for 30 years. At its peak, MTV was that glorious spot that filled the years between Chitrahaar on Doordarshan and YouTube on the internet. How else were Indians to know that Michael Jackson was the monster all along in his Thriller video? Or that Milind Soman was going to pop out of the wooden box in Alisha Chinai’s Made In India? Or that it was two grandpas who were actually singing Macarena?

Right off, MTV was always more than music. For a generation coming into its own in the 1990s, it was a rebellious older sibling who spoke their language, played their anthems, understood their angst. Sure, MTV played rock, pop and hip-hop. But it also taught a generation how to speak, dress, joke, rebel and belong. Mumbai writer Shubarna Mukherjee Shu, 43, remembers sitting in front of the living room TV in 1999, landline in hand, when MTV’s Most Wanted played the top songs of the moment.

“My friends and I would be on a conference call, collectively praying,” for any song from the Backstreet Boys’ album Millennium to air. “When they finally played one, we’d scream-sing along on the phone. It made our day.”

This kind of magic didn’t happen by chance. Here’s how it all was all part of a grand design.

MTV India announced itself with swagger. In January 1996, Slash from Guns N’ Roses flew to Bangalore to jam with Indus Creed at the channel’s launch. Months later, MTV partnered with Michael Jackson for the Mumbai stop on his HIStory World Tour. There was an 11-city roadshow, MTV Get It, making stops on college campuses and getting a sense of what young India was all about.

“The Indian music industry was not developed,” says Seher Bedi, who joined MTV in 1995 as a producer, one of the first employees at the channel. “We had singers and bands, but no music videos. Outside India, nobody knew these artists existed.”

The team started from scratch, shooting videos, packaging live gigs, creating sets. “In that first year, the buzz was insane,” Bedi recalls. “Audiences went crazy when we just showed up to record concerts.”

The graduating class of Indian pop — Alisha Chinai, Daler Mehndi, Lucky Ali, Shaan and Sagarika, KK, Sonu Nigam, Euphoria, Colonial Cousins, Indian Ocean and more — all built their fame on airplay on MTV, and rival Channel [V].

“A R Rahman wasn’t known outside the south then,” recalls Cyrus Broacha, who hosted shows on the channel until 2008. “We were shooting Maa Tujhe Salaam in the desert, and I told him, ‘Bring that bag from the corner.’ I had no idea he’d become this colossal figure. Back then, he was just a colleague.”

International music was funnelled into simplified segments: Unplugged for acoustic recordings; Alternative Nation for indie and alt genres; Headbangers Ball for noisy metal and rock; Select for viewers requests. And, in a move that left Millennials ever grateful, MTV flashed the song’s name, artist, album and often the video director, with every play. What a time to be alive!

“The channel’s high-energy aesthetic left its mark on advertising, film, comedy, graphic design — everything. Show business as we know it today wouldn’t exist without it,” says Alex Kuruvilla, who led MTV India between 1999 and 2006. They called viewers the MTV Generation – kids who chomped on burgers, dared to wear jeans with kurtas, got bored in three minutes (the average length of a song), mourned Kurt Cobain, rapped to Baba Sehgal and knew the difference between RHCP and RATM.

India needed a little hand-holding to process these new sounds. Enter VJs (video jockeys), young super-confident Indians who dressed stylishly, had radical opinions and jabbered between the songs. It was immediately the coolest job in the country.

“Rahul Khanna was based in Singapore then, so Tara Deshpande and I were technically the first local VJs,” Broacha says. In 1997, Malaika Arora joined to host Club MTV and Loveline. The same year, MTV launched its nationwide VJ Hunt, and discovered Maria Goretti and Nikhil Chinapa.

“I almost didn’t go,” recalls Goretti, who was a model then, and got asked to audition in the last week of the hunt. “I thought maybe they just needed more people on stage. My sister pushed me. I won. It changed my life.”

Chinapa, an architecture student, had been hosting radio shows and live events for pocket money in Bangalore. He participated on a whim. “Anything that popped up, I’d try,” he says. He moved to Mumbai, started off with hosting Select, eventually leaving to set up the Submerge and Sunburn music festivals and shape the channel VH1 Supersonic.

The job looked like fun, but it was relentless: VJs shot links, hosted on-ground events, visited colleges, met brand partners and distributors, attended parties. The pay was modest; the real currency was access — to artists, to ideas, to a rapidly globalising world.

“I don’t think any of us realized how much impact we were having,” says Shenaz Treasury, who hosted MTV Most Wanted and MTV Chillout and moved on to MTV Asia. “It hit me later, when people in Singapore would recognize me on the street and tell me how MTV shaped their style, humour, even their slang, that MTV was bigger than any one show.”

In 1998-99, the channel went mainstream, including Hindi music in its programming. “While the brand’s DNA was global, everything else – the IPs, programming, the shows, the marketing was hyper local,” says Kuruvilla. “MTV took pride in its local successes.”

It’s most enduring hit: Bakra, in which Broacha essentially pranked unsuspecting folks on camera. No one was exempt – not even movie stars and cricketers. The MTV generation was fearlessly laughing at itself, at others, at life. It spawned 13 competitors within six months and ran for over a decade.

Broacha recalls feedback from an unexpected fan: “Someone called my landline and said, ‘Bal Thackeray speaking,’ He spoke clearly, in English, and said, ‘I just wanted to tell you I love this show. I stop all our meetings at 3.30 to watch it. Keep up the good work’.”

The channel took Indian music to the world. In 1999, Bedi was sent to New York to cover the MTV Video Music Awards, where A R Rahman won the International Viewer’s Choice: MTV India for Dil Se Re, the title track from Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se. “We shot with him across the NYC talking about his favourite places and music,” she recalls. “Later, we took Colonial Cousins to MTV London for the first Unplugged.”

Mini Mathur, VJ between 1999 and 2003, recalls interviewing Richard Gere at an Aids concert, stepping in last-minute to interview Deep Purple, and hosting Aamir Khan alongside the cast of Lagaan. 

“The actors were nervous – it was their first big interaction with cameras. I moved easily between English and Hindi, and Aamir looked at me with respect.”

Goretti recalls being part of Gaana Masti, which parodied popular music. “Cyrus and I spoofed an Urmila Matondkar song. We also did Koi Mil Gaya: Mini was Rani Mukerji, Cyrus was Shah Rukh, and I was Kajol. Mad stuff!”

YouTube launched in 2005, Spotify launched worldwide in 2008 (and in India in 2019). Music videos, MTV’s lifeblood, were now free and on-demand. So, it pivoted to reality shows. It was a new MTV generation, one that dreamed of making it to Roadies and Splitsvilla, who understood the power of their own stories and voice.

“When people auditioned, they’d talk openly about trauma – facing abuse for being gay, skinny, fat, identity,” says Chinapa. “We encouraged young people to speak.”

We no longer need VJs, handholding or a chance to speak. We’re doing it all ourselves, editing, adding filters and clapping back at trolls. But MTV’s spirit – Indian yet international, irreverent but honest – it will take more than a channel shutdown to stamp that out.

After critically and commercially acclaimed collaborations in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) and Devdas (2002), composer Ismail Darbar and filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali had a fallout. The rift was reported to have emerged after Bhansali dropped Ismail from his web series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, over an article describing Darbar as the “backbone” of the project.

Now, Darbar said he felt “betrayed”, since he had spent a year and a half working on the music. “He betrayed me, not once, but twice. He committed to working with me, and then didn’t do so. I had worked on Heeramandi for 1.5 years, and he didn’t tell me before replacing me,” Darbar told Subhojit Ghosh.

The composer added Bhansali tried to reconcile, inviting him to the show’s premiere, but did not attend. “I respect him a lot because he gave my family and me a lot of love. We had a good bond till Heeramandi, he called me from the front to invite me to the show’s premiere. He had told me that he didn’t call anyone else but me, but by that time, my heart had already broken. If Sanjay and I had done Heeramandi, we would have created history,” Durbar said.

This comes days after Bhansali was reported to have been hospitalized due to chest pain, even though his family denied the claims, calling it a ‘routine check-up’.