5 min readChennaiMay 18, 2026 10:04 AM IST
Karuppu movie box office collection day 3: This past Thursday, there was a dark cloud cast over the release of RJ Balaji’s action thriller Karuppu, starring Suriya and Trisha in lead roles. The film, which couldn’t release as per schedule on May 14 owing to pending dues by its production house over a 2023 release, finally saw light of the day the next day on Friday.
While The Suriya, TRisha film has earned Rs 68 crore at India box office, its opening weekend collection globally was Rs 42 crore. Karuppu’s total worldwide earnings over the opening weekend stand at Rs 120.75 crore.
Karuppu domestic box office collection day 3
However, that initial uncertainty over the film’s fate seems to have done more good than damage. It further piqued the audience’s curiosity for the movie, as they showed up in hordes to support Suriya and his team after the initial hurdles. As a result, as the opening weekend progressed, the daily collections witnessed one spike after another.
On Sunday (day 3) at the domestic box office, Karuppu earned Rs 28.35 crore across 6,843 shows. This included the majority chunk of Rs 24.20 crore from 5,048 shows in its native language of Tamil, and Rs 4.15 crore from 1795 shows in the dubbed language of Telugu. Thus, the film saw a decent increase (around 15%) from its overall Saturday (day 2) domestic earnings of Rs 24.15 crore across 6288 shows, as per Sacnilk.
That was, in turn, a significant jump (about 55%) from its opening day earnings of Rs 15.50 crore across 4,891 shows at the domestic box office. The relatively low opening can be attributed to the lack of clarity over the film’s fate till Friday morning, which resulted in less shows and lesser footfall. The clarity came only with Suriya announcing on Friday morning on his X handle that Karuppu has finally cleared all hurdles to release in cinemas a day later on May 15.
Trisha in Karuppu.
Karuppu worldwide box office collection day 3
Thus, the opening weekend of Karuppu at the India box office stands at Rs 68 crore. In the process, it’s surpassed the Rs 50 crore mark domestically and given the current trajectory and lack of competition at the Tamil/Telugu box office, is now eyeing the Rs 100 crore club in India. Overseas, it added another Rs 13 crore to its earnings on Sunday, which led to total overseas collection over the opening weekend add up to Rs 42 crore.
When combined with the domestic box office collection in the same period, the total worldwide earnings of Karuppu over the opening weekend stand at Rs 120.75 crore. Thus, it’s crossed the Rs 100 crore milestone globally in just the first three days, becoming only the second Suriya film to enter the Rs 100 crore club worldwide, after Siva’s 2024 action fantasy Siva.
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In fact, within its opening weekend, Suriya has managed to outdo himself, as Karuppu surpassed the total worldwide box office collection of Siva, which stands at Rs 106.64 crore — Rs 82.64 crore from domestic earnings and Rs 24 crore from overseas. Additionally, it took Kanguva almost a month to cross the Rs 100 crore mark globally, a feat Karuppu has achieved in just three days.
Karuppu’s financial troubles
Two days after SR Prabhu and SR Prakashbabu’s production house Dream Warrior Pictures announced they’ve got “special permission” from Tamil Nadu’s new chief minister Vijay for 9 am shows of Karuppu on Thursday and Friday, disgruntled audience members began to complain on Wednesday that shows are getting cancelled or they’re unable to book for the first day first show online.
Late on Wednesday night, Prabhu announced that due to “unavoidable reasons”, the 9 am shows of Karuppu on Thursday stand cancelled. That followed suit through the day as shows kept getting cancelled and audience members kept getting refunds. SCREEN learnt that the hurdles in release were caused by pending dues of over Rs 25 crore by Dream Warrior Pictures, primarily to the distributors over the release of their 2023 film, Raju Murugan’s action comedy Japan, starring Karthi.
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It was only after Suriya stepped in that the matter between the distributors and the production house got amicably resolved late Thursday night, which resulted in Karuppu’s release on Friday, a day later than the scheduled date of May 14. But given Suriya has already earned his highest grossing film post-pandemic within the compromised opening weekend, one can safely conclude that all’s well that ends well.
