‘The Kerala Story’ has banged with a powerful opening at the box office in just a day. The Vipul Shah’s production film starring Adah Sharma hit the theatres on Friday amid the major controversy and multiple petitions challenging its release. Talking about the movie, The Kerala Story revolves around the stories of Hindu women from Kerala who were converted to Islam and trafficked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

‘The Kerala Story’ Controversy

The petitions have claimed that the film about women in Kerala joining ISIS is not based on facts, and propagates hatred against the Muslim community. A section of the internet has, in fact, compared the Sudipto Sen directorial with Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files, which also faced backlash and boycott calls at the time of its release for allegedly vilifying the Kashmiri Muslim community. Despite the controversy, the Agnitroni magnum opus turned out to be a blockbuster at the box office and ran for more than two months in theatres. The Kashmir Files was based on the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in 1990.

According to the trade reports, “Adah Sharma’s film may just edge out Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 on the first day as both films head for collections in the 7 crore nett region.”

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Box office earning

The movie has generated enough buzz. Trade analysts are hopeful that the box office collection of ‘The Kerala Story’ is going to be surprising and the movie is likely to enjoy a decent theatrical run. Taking notes from the movie response, the Box Office said, “The Kerala Story has better collections across mass circuits so when the circuit figures come in the morning it will be no surprise to see The Kerala Story go towards Rs 7.5 crore nett and maybe even more.”

The BOI said, “It is a huge performance as collections are much better than many mainstream films recently like Bhediya, Cirkus and Shehzada which had some face value. The film is controversial and very shows blatant negativity towards a community which may not have been seen in Indian cinema in this way and this is basically become the selling point of the film. The Kerala Story is similar to The Kashmir Files but the opening is double of that film and it’s a straight HIT in terms of the box office on day one. Now it remains to see where it goes.”