‘RRR’ Tops ‘The Batman’ With $3.3 Million Thursday

Between seeing RRR in IMAX yesterday morning and seeing Everything Everywhere All At Once in IMAX last night, yesterday was a good day for overlong, overwhelming action-fantasy spectaculars that peak at the 90-minute mark and briefly feature one character helping another by carrying them on their shoulders.

I don’t have Thursday night grosses for A24’s limited release of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s mindblowing multiverse comic melodrama, but my 8:15 pm IMAX showing at Burbank was packed like sardines and reacting in exactly the “right” way throughout. Considering how often I see big movies either at press screenings or early morning, near-empty matinees, it was the kind of theatrical experience that I wish I could conveniently replicate more often.

Anyway, RRR was the top movie on Thursday, grossing $3.3 million via a Thursday opening. RRR is the latest Telugu-language action melodrama/epic fantasy from S. S. Rajamouli. He’s the guy who gave us the two-part Baahubali: The Beginning ($26 million worldwide in 2015) and Baahubali: The Conclusion ($262 million global, including $221 million in India, in 2017). Both are currently on Netflix if you’re inclined to see what all of the fuss is about.

This flick is comparatively more grounded, telling a comparatively grim and often violent tale (centered on but not technically based upon real-life characters and incidents) of British imperialism and righteous revolution while still offering the bonkers-bananas production values, spectacle and larger-than-life action that justifies yesterday’s $30 (!) IMAX ticket.

This release is being specialty-priced courtesy of the distributor, and you can’t use your AMC A-List or Regal Unlimited passes, so that should be noted as the grosses roll in. Still, you sure as hell get your money’s worth, it’s a three-hour spectacle (complete with an intermission) that periodically plays like Aquaman on steroids (swapping sea creatures for wild animals) with the patriotic/nationalistic fervor of Pearl Harbor or Battle At Lake Changjin.

The full Thursday gross was $3.3 million, but late night/early morning Friday shows now puts the running cume at $4.5 million. Baahubali 2 earned $4.6 million on its first Friday/opening day in late April 2017 for an eventual $10.4 million Fri-Sun debut before ending with $19 million. We’ll see how frontloaded this one turns out to be, but I’m expecting it to be right up there with the opening weekend of The Lost City ($2.5 million on Thursday and $3.25 million counting all preview grosses) and the fourth frame for The Batman.

And, yeah, the domestic grosses for RRR will mostly be trivia as the flick attempts to stand tall beside Dangal (the biggest-grossing Indian flick ever with $305 million worldwide, including $193 million in China) and Baahubali: The Conclusion (the biggest grosser ever *in* India).

RRR has set opening day records in a number of territories/markets in India, and we’ll see how it fares compared to The Conclusion’s $45 million opening in April of 2017. RRR is currently playing in 947 theaters domestically (more than double the 425 theaters in which Baahubali 2 opened), although it only had IMAX or PLF auditoriums for yesterday.

Of note, I sought out Saaho and War in 2019 because I enjoyed watching wildly extravagant and visually spectacular action-adventure movies on an IMAX screen, especially ones created by a film industry that (generically speaking) seems to love John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II as much as I do. I was planning on playing catch-up and tutoring myself (as I did with China back in 2015) before Covid. Here’s hoping I can find enough time to do both in 2022.