Box office stories | Telugu Chitram

Nani as Jadal in the official teaser artwork for The Paradise. — Image: YOUTUBE / SLV CINEMAS

Box office · 24 Sept 2026

The Paradise Crossed $1 Million Before Nani Even Walked Onscreen

Nani's The Paradise crossed $1 million in North American premiere pre-sales hours before its September 24 release, setting a new overseas benchmark for the actor.

trivikram srinivas portrait — Image: Dhanunjaya Naidu · CC BY-SA 4.0

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Before Pushpa went national, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo showed how big Allu Arjun already was

Allu Arjun returned after roughly two years into a crowded Sankranti and produced the biggest hit of his career to that point. Pushpa expanded the map later; this was the commercial base it expanded from.

nani portrait — Image: Film Companion South · CC BY 3.0

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Dasara tested a new ceiling for Nani — and the box office moved it

Nani paired the biggest production of his career to that point with a first-time director. Dasara crossed a producer-announced ₹100 crore milestone and Genesis records ₹118.50 crore worldwide gross from Sacnilk for the theatrical run.

hanu man theatrical poster — Image: Twitter

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Hanu-Man cost ₹40 crore before marketing. Then the underdog crossed ₹300 crore

Prasanth Varma tried to make superhero-scale imagery without superhero-studio money. In a crowded Sankranti, the film turned that constraint into one of Telugu cinema’s most extreme modern box-office multipliers.

mahesh babu portrait — Image: http://www.princemahesh.com/ http://www.princemahesh.com/new/wp-content/gallery/spyder-stills/mahesh-babu-spyder-stills-6.jpg · CC BY-SA 4.0

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Pokiri didn’t make Mahesh Babu famous. It changed the size of his stardom

Mahesh Babu already had hits. Pokiri turned his cool restraint into a new mass-hero template, broke Telugu box-office records and created expectations he later said left him unsure what to do next.

venkatesh daggubati portrait — Image: Bollywood Hungama · CC BY 3.0

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Sankranthiki Vasthunam walked into an action-heavy Sankranti and the family comedy won

Venkatesh and Anil Ravipudi returned to a familiar entertainment register after Saindhav’s failure. The result was a genre outlier that beat louder Sankranti rivals and produced a ₹255.48 crore Genesis trade claim.

krithi shetty portrait — Image: Bollywood Hungama · CC BY 3.0

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Uppena put three debuts at the center of a film — and trade reporting put it at ₹100 crore

A first-time director and two young leads entered a recovering theatrical market with experienced producers around them. The result became one of 2021’s clearest arguments that a star name was not required for blockbuster-scale Telugu demand.

anupama parameswaran portrait — Image: Avinashrint2 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Karthikeya 2 started with 50 Hindi shows. Then the audience kept asking for more

Nikhil Siddhartha said the Hindi release expanded from about 50 shows to roughly 4,000. The box-office story was not a giant launch — it was demand forcing the release wider.

Allu Arjun as Pushpa Raj in the official Pushpa 2 teaser artwork — Image: Mythri Movie Makers via the official Pushpa 2 teaser

Box office · 18 Sept 2026

Pushpa 2’s opening day came with two numbers — and both belong in the record

The film team said ₹294 crore worldwide; Sacnilk reported about ₹279 crore worldwide gross. The disagreement is exactly why Chitram should store box office as sourced claims, not one magic number.