Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi's much-awaited film Thandel is currently screening in theaters. Surprisingly, despite its star power and rooted backdrop, the film is underperforming in the U.S. So far, it has grossed $670K as of 9 PM EST on Monday.
Looking at the Monday trend, which is extremely slow, the film seems headed for a big disappointment for its U.S. distributor.
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Thandel needs around $1.3M to $1.4M to break even, but it may not even touch $1 million.
These days, it's rare for a film with this kind of star cast and a strong technical team, music from DSP, to struggle this much to reach the $1 million mark.
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While $1 million is no longer a big milestone for Tollywood films, Thandel is struggling significantly in the U.S.
The blame largely falls on the director Chandoo Mondeti, as the second half failed to generate the required buzz or positive word-of-mouth. More on this later, but Thandel is shaping up to be a major disappointment in the U.S., following Game Changer, which was an outright disaster in January. If this trend continues, Thandel will be another big setback for Tollywood in North America.