Suriya’s much-awaited movie Retro, which has been directed by Karthik Subbaraj, has built a huge buzz ever since its release and is getting noticed for both its storyline and box office run. Even with a promising opening and strong expectations, the film just fell short of the ₹100 crore mark at the global box office through theatrical collections. According to trade estimates, Retro grossed around ₹96.5 crore worldwide, with nearly ₹70.5 crore from India and another ₹26 crore from overseas regions. Although these figures represent a good show, they missed the mythical ₹100 crore target mark that audiences and trade analysts had wished for it to achieve.
Still, the producers of the film state that Retro has earned a total of ₹235 crore worldwide if non-theatrical collections are included. Theycomprise digital streaming rights, satellite rights, music rights, and other ancillary streams that add substantially to the total revenues of the film. This is an important change in the manner by which films are assessed now—not just by box office numbers but also by the mannerin which they earn money on different platforms. The addition of suchrevenues puts Retro in the list of financially viable ventures for the year, despite its box office figures being slightly low.
With Suriya leading the cast and Pooja Hegde, Joju George, Prakash Raj, and Jayaram, and backed by a thrilling soundtrack by Santhosh Narayanan, the movie has a multidecade-long story line of drama, romance, and action in a peculiar period setting. Even with the hype, there have been concerns expressed by film analysts regarding the openness of the gross collection reports, with a reported disparity between the data from the theaters and the released numbers. Nevertheless, Retro has left its imprint both artistically and financially. Its path is indicative of the changing economics of cinema, where success is defined not only by box office revenues but by an integrationof theatrical and out-of-theater revenue channels.