Kantara Chapter 1 sees strong advance sales ahead of Oct 2 release

Advance bookings for Kantara Chapter 1, the long-awaited prequel to Rishab Shetty’s 2022 hit, have shown strong early demand ahead of its October 2 release, with ticket sales and industry estimates pointing to a substantial opening across multiple languages. The film, directed by and starring Shetty, will open nationwide on the Gandhi Jayanti and Dussehra holidays in Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali and English.

A box-office tracking service reported that on the first day of advance sales the film sold 47,210 tickets across languages by mid-morning, generating about Rs 4.11 crore. Data from a major ticketing platform showed more than 160,000 tickets sold within 24 hours of sales opening, registering roughly Rs 5.47 crore in revenue, with blocked seats bringing the platform’s reported total to around Rs 8.31 crore. Another industry estimate put first-day presales at about 170,000 tickets and roughly Rs 5.7 crore. Those figures underscore heightened audience interest in the prequel, which follows the folklore-rooted narrative that made the original a cultural and box-office phenomenon, grossing around Rs 400 crore worldwide.

Shetty’s film, produced by Hombale...