Thuppakki Box Office Details and Production Costs

First things, first. Thuppakki has definitely emerged as the top 3 revenue generating movies of all time in Tamil Cinema (not adjusting for inflation). Thuppakki is still doing phenomenal business even after the end of 2nd full week. This is indeed a fact and there are no two ways about it even though the actual box office revenues are widely speculated. Here is the production cost and total budget of Thuppakki to get started,

Thuppakki's Production Costs

The total Production cost and budget of Thuppakki is estimated at Rs. 62.5 Crores (including production cost and producer share). Here is the detailed break-up with estimated costs,

A. Total Remuneration (Director, Vijay, Key Cast and Crew Members) - 30 Crores

• Vijay - Rs. 15 Crores

• A R Murugadoss - Rs. 8 Crores

• Harris Jayaraj - Rs. 2.5 Crores 

• Santhosh Sivan - Rs. 2 Crores

• Kajal Agarwal + other cast and leading technicians - Rs. 2.5 Crores

B. Total Shooting and Production Costs  - Rs. 22.5 Crores 

• The shooting was well planned and completed within 100 days over 3 long schedules in Mumbai. The production costs include all shooting expenses incurred at Mumbai locations, camera, lights, generators, equipment rentals, light-men, junior artists and all other union members. This is comparatively low for a movie of this scale. 

C. Thanu paid Rs.52.5 crore to AR Murugadoss for buying the rights on first copy basis 

• Producer Thaanu was reported to have paid AR Murugadoss Rs. 52.5 Crores. Thaanu took additional 5 Crores as his production facilitation fee (not including any other production manager margins) and Vijay's father, SAC, also earned Rs. 5 Crores as facilitation fees for arranging the dates of Vijay. 

D. Gemini bought the rights from Thanu for Rs.62.5 crore and spent additional Rs.5 crore on publicity 

• Gemini Film Circuit bought the rights for Rs. 62.5 Crores and resold the rights to regional and overseas distributors and spent additional Rs. 5 Crores on publicity. Gemini earned a table profit of over Rs.10 crore during the process of taking a big risk of buying the rights from Thaanu at Rs. 62.5 Crores.

Final Business of Thuppakki 

Overall, Thuppakki has been sold for 50% higher price than previous Vijay movies. It is yet to be seen whether Gemini will earn the overflow after selling at such high prices (total over Rs.45 Crore as MG royalty, the net box office has to cross Rs.100 Crore in South to earn any overflow as it  is payable only after the distributors recover their MG Royalty + Print cost + Local publicity cost + 20% commission on the MG paid and then share at 50:50). 

So, did Thuppakki join the 100 Crore Club? 

On the revenue side, the topic of wild speculations by many rookies has been whether Thuppakki had crossed Rs. 100 Crores. A number of wild assumptions have been made to come up with highly incorrect gross figures. In fact, leading Box Office pundits/experts have publicly questioned the veracity of such erroneous box office reports.

Mankatha - Examples of doctored Box Office Collections from the Past

On a side note, similar box office drama happened last year for Mankatha when a number of leading print and online media firms reported Mankatha's had collected Rs. 130 Crores based on a casual tweet from a fake Sun Pictures twitter account.

Read how Tamil Movie Box Office numbers are manipulated - Did Mankatha make Rs. 130 Crores?