'Baththa' day 8 box office: Vijay Sethupathi film records slight growth ahead of second weekend

Vijay Sethupathi-starrer Baththa on Thursday collected slightly more in daily box-office earnings than it did the day before.

Box office tracker Sacnilk reported that the Tamil comedy drama collected ₹1.38 crore net in India across 1,430 shows on day 8, which reflects a marginal 3.8 per cent growth from Wednesday's collection of ₹1.33 crore.

This brings the film's total India net collection to ₹15.46 crore, while its India gross stands at ₹17.91 crore.

The film recorded 1,18,738 footfalls on Thursday, taking its total audience turnout to 1,292,697 after eight days in theatres.

Directed by Balaji Tharaneetharan and featuring Lijomol Jose alongside Sethupathi and newcomer Master Sai Prithviraj, Baththa managed to overcome its modest ₹1.50-crore-net opening on October 1 (Thursday) due to its strongly positive audience reception.

The next day was not only a Friday, but also a public holiday (Gandhi Jayanti), due to which it notched a ₹2.70 crore net as footfall grew.

The film continued its strong momentum over the weekend. It earned ₹2.75 crore net on Saturday and reached its first-week peak on Sunday, collecting ₹3.10 crore net.

The Sunday performance is touted as its strongest single-day result during opening week, after which it held stable during the weekdays.

It is yet to be seen whether the film can repeat that opening weekend success—that fetched nearly ₹9 crore net—with the day 9 collection to show if word-of-mouth will be enough to bring nearly 50 per cent audiences to theatres as in the first weekend.

Set in 1986 Madras, the story follows Baththa (Vijay Sethupathi), a feared local gangster estranged from his family due to his violent life, who forms an unlikely friendship with an eight-year-old boy, Sabari (Master Sai).