Rishab Shetty’s ‘Kantara 2’ is making waves, nearing Rs 600 crore and challenging ‘Stree 2’s record. Despite facing strong competition and an early OTT release on October 31st, the film’s stellar performance continues. Its box office journey beyond the streaming debut will be a fascinating case study for Indian cinema.
When Rishab Shetty had commenced working on Kantara, neither he nor the people involved in the making of the film would have been aware that the film would be changing the grammar of Kannada cinema. When the first part hit the cinemas in 2022 it went on the make over Rs 309 crore across languages and now in 2025 with the second part Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1 the film is already closing in on Rs 600 crore mark but there is one road block and Shraddha Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao and Amar Kaushik’s Stree 2 with a lifetime collection of Rs 597.99 crore. Kantara 2’s collection at the end of 26 days stands at Rs 592.52 crore and it has already become the second biggest hit of the year and the 9th biggest hit of Indian Cinema.
Till three days ago for Kantara 2 to jump one more spot on the box office leadership board it needed very long and confident strides as the gap between itself and the next possible name Stree 2 on highest grossing Indian films list was more than Rs 30 crores.But its stellar performance over the weekend had narrowed down to less to just Rs 5.47 crore. The film has managed to survive two Diwali releases in Ayushmann Khurrana and Rashmika Mandanna’s Thamma and Harshvardhan Rane and Sonam Bajwa’s Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat and was also looking strong to take on re-release of SS Rajamouli and Prabhas’sBaahubali- The Epic which is releasing on October 31st. But on Monday evening it was announced that Kanatar 2 would be available on a streaming platform from 31st October itself – on the 29th day of its theatrical release. It would be available in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam versions. The film won’t be available in Hindi which has been the highest performing language but the question begs as to how the film would perform once the film makes its debut on OTT. The film on its 26th day minted Rs 2.92 crore across languages ; it now needs Rs 5.47 crore to go past Stree 2’s collection and Rs 9 crore to beat Chhaava’s collection. It would be a case study from here on as to how many days will the film take beyond its OTT release to breach these numbers.
