At the end of the 5 days' opening weekend, Mersal has approximately grossed around 6.86 crores from Chennai City alone. This is a new record as Mersal becomes the 1st film ever to collect 6 crores plus gross from its 1st weekend.
Mersal had close to 680 shows over the weekend in Chennai. PVR and INOX have been temporarily shut down, and the total screen count and collection would be even better had both these multiplexes screened the film. Ticket price increase has helped a great deal, but consequently, the net would be lesser than the gross.
Having said that this is still a massive opening that any filmmaker would dream for and let us hope that Mersal keeps the box office counters ringing.
Following the latest controversy around a few of Mersal's dialogues and BJP's protests for their removal, H Raja spoke to us in a exclusive interview.
The BJP leader, amongst a lot of things, questioned Vijay's own practices relating to income equality and providing free services. He alleged that a Vijay owned school collects donations of Rs. 1 lakh for the LKG course, and that it contradicts his message in Mersal that a few services ought to be free.
He brought up dialogues in Mersal that stressed equality in medical aid for everyone, ranging from the poorest person to the most powerful/rich. He compared it to Vijay's own salary policies and asked if it would be possible to be paid only as much as the lowest paid individual on set.
Addressing attacks on Vijay's wealth and tax records, he remarked that there is nothing wrong in them. He reasoned that when a star preaches messages to the society in his film, the society gets the right to criticise him politically.
Here is the full interview: