Inside the Box: Drishyam 2's Suspense Draws Audiences

Abhishek Pathak’s Drishyam 2, starring Ajay Devgn and Tabu, was released on November 18. The film is a remake of the eponymous 2021 Malayalam film. On its opening day, Drishyam 2 made a whopping Rs 15.38 crore, surpassing the opening day collection of Abhishek Sharma’s Ram Setu, which stood at Rs 15.25 crore. The remake has emerged as the fourth-highest opening-day grosser of the year, preceded by KGF - Chapter 2 (Rs 53.95 crore), Brahmastra (Rs 36 crore) and RRR (Rs 20.07 crore).

Drishyam 2’s collections only snowballed over the weekend, earning approximately Rs 21.59 crore on Saturday followed by Rs 27.17 crore on Sunday, amounting to an impressive Rs 64.14 crore. In 2021, the Malayalam original had been set for a theatrical release, but was eventually released on Amazon Prime Video owing to pandemic-induced restrictions. In an interview, Pathak said about Drishyam 2’s performance, “It is overwhelming! I knew I made an honest film that was not a blind remake of the original.”

According to Gautam Jain, partner at Ormax Media, the suspense and intrigue built around the franchise, as well as the high recall value of events and characters from the first film prompted audiences to visit the theatre. “There have not been many films which have done well post-Brahmastra and the audience was eager for a good film to be watched on the big screen,” he added.

With the 2022 FIFA World Cup beginning on November 20, it remains to be seen how Drishyam 2 will perform in the coming weeks. Jain, however, is optimistic. “The film is holding up very well on its first Monday and looking at this trend it can be said that it is on its course to emerge as a big success at the box office,” he says. Its prequel, Drishyam (2015), had made a total gross of Rs 93.85 crore in the Indian box office by the end of its run and had reached a combined worldwide total gross of Rs 1.1 billion.