The highly awaited team-up of Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam, which was titled Thug Life, has proved to be a gigantic letdown at the worldwide box office. It hit theaters on June 5, 2025, and this gangster movie was able to garner only ₹89 crore across the world in its first week ₹46 crore from India and ₹43 crore abroad. It’s now expected to finish its run in theaters with less than ₹100 crore, which is a devastating blow given the expectation and icon that surrounded it.
India Box Office: Steep Fall Following Opening Weekend
In India, Thug Life struggled. During the long weekend between Thursday and Sunday, the film grossed ₹40.75 crore, with ₹33 crore of it emerging from Tamil Nadu and the remaining ₹7.75 crore from the rest of the nation. Unfortunately, the movie experienced a sharp decline in collections during weekdays. Collections dipped to ₹2.25 crore on Monday, then further down to ₹1.75 crore on Tuesday, and an estimated ₹1.25–1.50 crore on Wednesday. The overall first-week collection in India amounts to about ₹46 crore, reflecting poor reception by the public.
The critics blamed negative word-of-mouth, a tired story, and a poor script as the prime reasons for the poor box office performance of the movie. The failure of the movie to release in Karnataka following controversy over Kamal Haasan’s comments on the Kannada language cost it approximately ₹5 crore.
Foreign Box Office and Industry Comparison
Globally, Thug Life was slightly better with ₹43 crore at the gross box office, but still a far cry from the recent successes of Kamal Haasan. His previous release, Indian 2, which was another failure, was able to rake in ₹151 crore, while Vikram did exceptionally well, grossing over ₹400 crore across the globe.
Also Read: Thug Life Hits Rock Bottom! Kamal Haasan’s Film Plummets to Rs 1.75 Crore on Day 6
For Mani Ratnam, this is a stark difference from the massive success of Ponniyin Selvan I & II. The box office failure is even sharper when you contrast it with Housefull 5, which was released just a day later and crossed ₹100 crore in India in just four days.
Thug Life is now a huge miss for these two film legends.
