Yash's Toxic beats Dhurandhar's opening day haul before lunch despite mixed reviews racing to ₹500 million

Dubai: The Rocking Star is back, and the ticket window is making that clear. Unbothered by negative reviews, unaffected by a four-year gap and three delays, and braving all the chatter about violence and intimate scenes, Yash's Toxic has taken a running start on its opening day.

The Geetu Mohandas directorial released in cinemas on Wednesday, 26 August in India, timed to the Onam and Eid-e-Milad holidays, and the opening numbers are breaking records across India and across languages.

Note: box office figures are live and updating through the day. All numbers are from industry tracker Sacnilk and reflect the latest available update.

Toxic was always expected to open big. Even so, the pace has surprised the trade.

As of 2.25pm on release day, the film had collected ₹48.53 crore (approximately ₹485 million) net across India from 12,779 tracked shows, putting it on the verge of the ₹50 crore (₹500 million) net mark within hours. The total India gross collection at that point stood at ₹57.27 crore (roughly ₹573 million).

The language split shows the pan-India spread. The Hindi version leads with ₹24.27 crore (about ₹243 million) net at 39 per cent occupancy. The original Kannada version remains rock-solid in its home circuit with ₹13.93 crore (₹139 million) net and an extraordinary 85 per cent occupancy. The Telugu version is performing strongly at ₹7.25 crore (₹72.5 million), with Tamil and Malayalam contributing ₹2.34 crore (₹23.4 million) and ₹0.74 crore (₹7.4 million) respectively.

The comparison driving the headlines involves Ranveer Singh's Dhurandhar, last year's ₹1,300 crore (₹13 billion) blockbuster and the highest-grossing Indian film of the year.

Dhurandhar opened at ₹28 crore (₹280 million) net in December before building on strong word of mouth. Toxic crossed that entire opening-day haul with just its morning shows. Most trade experts now expect the film to sail past the ₹80 crore (₹800 million) mark by the end of the day, with some projecting a worldwide opening between ₹100 crore (₹1 billion) and ₹120 crore (₹1.2 billion) if walk-in demand holds through the holiday.

One record looks safe, however. Toxic is expected to fall short of KGF: Chapter 2's all-time Kannada industry record of a ₹116 crore (₹1.16 billion) day one, still held by Yash himself.

The opening-day surge was written into the pre-sales.

Advance bookings opened at around 6am on Friday, 21 August, and ran for five frenetic days. By the time they closed on Wednesday morning, Toxic had sold over 18.48 lakh (1.848 million) tickets across more than 25,000 shows, grossing ₹58.27 crore (₹582.7 million) for day one excluding blocked seats. Including blocked seats, India pre-sales stood at ₹73.43 crore (₹734 million), with worldwide advance sales around ₹85 crore (₹850 million).

On BookMyShow alone, the film sold 1.67 million tickets in pre-sales, making it one of the highest pre-sellers in Indian cinema history, trailing only Yash's own KGF: Chapter 2, which had amassed 2.9 million.

The box office aside, the critical reception has been notably cooler.

Early reviews have been largely underwhelming, with several critics acknowledging Yash's screen presence and the film's technical polish while criticising weak writing and thin storytelling. One review summed up the sentiment as "all style, very little substance," pointing to what it called an overdose of KGF-style treatment with little emotional connection.

Whether that dents the collections over the coming days, or whether the sheer scale of the opening carries it through the weekend, is the question the next few days will answer.

For UAE audiences, Toxic is screening across VOX Cinemas in Kannada, Hindi and Tamil with Arabic and English subtitles from 25 August.