Rebel star Prabhas' fans made a beeline to Sandhya Theatre in Hyderabad, Telangana, on Thursday morning to catch the first shows of Kalki 2898 AD movie, the much-anticipated bilingual movie starring Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone, and Disha Patani. Videos that have surfaced online from outside the Sandhya Theatre in Hyderabad show die-hard fans celebrating the movie's release by singing and dancing.
Kalki 2898 AD hit the screens today, and cinema enthusiasts expressed their excitement by putting up cut-outs and posters of actor Prabhas at the theatre.
The eagerly awaited Kalki 2898 AD premiered at 5:30 am, with additional screenings planned. The ticket price hike for the movie in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh failed to deter enthusiasts from turning up at theatres early in the morning. The film released pan-India on June 27 in five languages- Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada.
The Telangana government increased ticket prices by ₹70 for regular theatres and ₹100 for multiplexes for the first eight days. Following this, the state government of the other Telugu state of Andhra Pradesh, also raised ticket costs for the first fourteen days. Consequently, moviegoers will now pay an additional ₹75 for single-screen viewings and ₹125 for multiplexes in AP.
The Nag Ashwin-directed film is touted to be one of the most expensive Indian films ever, with a production budget of over ₹600 crore, or US$75 million. Prabhas and Deepika Padukone's on-screen chemistry and the reel reunion of legendary actors Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan after 39 years set the stage for a promising cinematic experience. They last acted in the 1985 Hindi movie Geraftaar.
Prabhas, the protagonist, plays Bhairava, a bounty hunter in this Vyjayanthi Films production. The post-apocalyptic saga inspired by Hindu scriptures blends ancient Indian mythology with futuristic science fiction elements.
Prabhas took to social media platform X to announce that the movie's North American pre-sale box office collections exceeded $3.8 million on the release day, hours before its release. He wrote, “Kalki 2898 AD Final North America Pre sales crossed 3.8M$ for the opening day, a few hrs before premieres [sic].”
