Hyderabad: Malayalam survival drama 2018, which is based on the Kerala floods, has surpassed Mohanlal's Pulimurugan, which had held the record of the highest-grosser Malayalam film since 2016. The Jude Anthany Joseph film broke into the 150-crore club on Saturday.
The film boasts of an ensemble cast of Tovino Thomas, Kunchako Boban, Asif Ali, Vineeth Srinivasan, Aparna Balamurali, and Kalaiarasan, and was also dubbed and released in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi on Friday. According to Boxoffice India, 2018 has grossed Rs 156 crore worldwide in just 24 days of its release. The film has earned 80.24 crore in Kerala and is still going strong at the box office.
According to the report, the Hindi version of the film did not perform as well as was planned. 2018 debuted to a rather average response on the day of its release, despite being made on a budget of roughly Rs 20 crore. Thanks to strong word-of-mouth, it began to gain traction on the second day. It grossed over Rs 30 crore in its first weekend internationally.
However, a week after its release, Kerala's Knowledge Economy Mission director and writer P S Sreekala harshly criticised the film. She stated on Facebook that the video is based on factual distortion and lies. She went on to say that the filmmaker should have done more research. In her article, she said that the video portrays the chief minister as powerless, despite being in the forefront of the rescue efforts.
And, at a time when The Kerala Story is getting national attention, Malayalam film industry insiders say that 2018 is "the real Kerala Story" and not the one that claims to be it. The film premiered on May 5 and has earned standing ovations at theatres throughout the state.
