Pradeep Ranganathan is continuing to enjoy a massive fan following as well as housefull occupancy in theatres across Tamil Nadu. After Love Today and Dragon, his success continues as his latest film Dude had a solid jump start at the box office with Rs 10 crore in collections on its opening day on Friday. Dude marks the highest opening in Pradeep’s career, surpassing his previous films Dragon and Love Today, which earned Rs 7.6 crore and Rs 2.85 crore respectively on their first day of release.
A lion's share of the collections came from Trichy, Pudhucherry and Chennai. Mumbai and NCR regions also recorded a decent occupancy for the film. Dude's evening and night shows witnessed massive interest with them registering occupancy of around 46.17 per cent and 69.53 per cent respectively. Although the film clashed with Mari Selvaraj-Dhruv Vikram's Bison and Harish Kalyan's Diesel at the box office, Dude has triumphed with flying colours on its opening day. Collections are expected to increase during the festive weekend, which will be the real litmus test for all three films.
Despite garnering mixed reactions from audiences and critics, Dude has been running with packed houses in theatres, and was praised immensely for its entertaining storyline and screenplay by debutant director Keerthiswaran.
Our CE review of the film read, "Dude has a wacky infectious energy, and uses it to make hard-hitting commentary on social themes, but fails to leave a lasting impact."
Dude also stars Mamitha Baiju, Sarath Kumar, Hridhu Haroon, Rohini, Aishwarya Sharma, and Dravid Selvam, among others. It is produced by Naveen Yerneni and Y Ravi Shankar, with Anil Yerneni serving as the co-producer. Mythri Movie Makers has backed the film.
This is Sai Abhyankkar's Tamil cinema debut as a composer. The rest of the crew of the film includes Niketh Bommi as the cinematographer, Barath Vikraman as the editor, Latha Naidu as the production designer, and Yannick Ben and Dinesh Subbarayan as the stunt choreographers.
