Box Office Report: 'Athiradi' opens strong, marginally outperforms 'Vaazha 2' in domestic and worldwide collection

Basil Joseph and Tovino Thomas' latest reunion "Athiradi" is off to a strong start at the box office. The film's opening day collection places it ahead of all their recent solo efforts. As of now, it has registered the third-biggest opening of 2026 with a Rs 5.55 crore domestic net.

When combined with the paid preview show sales, the film has collected a domestic gross of Rs 7.04 crore and netted Rs 6.07 crore, taking the worldwide gross to Rs 10.54 crore.

For Basil, "Athiradi" has earned more on Day 1 than his recent successes like "Maranamass" (Rs 1 crore) and "Ponman" (Rs 0.75 crore). For Tovino, "Athiradi" has given a better opening than "Pallichattambi" (Rs 3.05 crore) and "Narivetta" (Rs 1.75 crore). It now remains to be seen if "Athiradi" will have the necessary legs to last it through a month-long theatrical run to emerge as one of the biggest hits. If it continues to earn the same figures for the first week alone as it did on the first day, it should overtake the lifetime gross of "Ponman" (Rs 12 crore) and "Maranamass" (Rs 19.50 crore). 

In terms of global total, "Athiradi", which also features Vineeth Sreenivasan in an extended cameo, has also opened better than recent successes like "Vaazha 2" (Rs 10.26 on Day 1). In fact, the two films are nearly on the same pace in domestic gross, with minute differences in numbers. However, "Athiradi" fell below the worldwide first-day earnings of "Aadu 3" (Rs 17.74 crore).

Currently, "Aadu 3" holds the record for the biggest Malayalam cinema opening of the year, raking in Rs 6.03 crore net on Day 1, followed by "Vaazha 2".

It has done better than films like "Manjummel Boys" worldwide, which opened to just Rs 7.85 crore worldwide.