Los Angeles: Director Lokesh Kanagaraj‘s ‘Leo: Bloody Sweet’ starring Tamil superstar Vijay is dominating the global box office, leaving behind Martin Scorsese's 'Killers Of The Flower Moon' starring Leonardo DiCaprio, reports Variety.
The film has collected $48.5 million (after four days), while Killers Of The Flower Moon, which also features Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, has garnered $44 million.
"In terms of worldwide cumulative among new releases, Leo scored $48.5 million (after four days) compared with the $44 million earned by Killers of the Flower Moon," says the Variety report. It was followed by ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ with $41.5 million.
A homage to David Cronenberg’s 2005 film ‘A History of Violence’, ‘Leo’ released on October 19. The film is produced by S.S. Lalit Kumar and Jagadish Palanisamy for Seven Screen Studio.
The action-thriller follows a docile cafe owner (Vijay) who is incited to return to his violent past. The cast also includes Sanjay Dutt, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Madonna Sebastian, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Mysskin, Mansoor Ali Khan, George Maryan, Priya Anand and Mathew Thomas.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a historical crime drama about a string of murders against the Osage nation in the early 1920s. The film, which was made on a budget of more than $200 million, is based on the award-winning book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, written by David Grann.
In the U.S., ‘Leo’ was released by Prathyangira Cinemas and earned $2.1 million over the weekend. In the U.K. and Ireland it was released by Ahimsa Entertainment and collected $1.3 million in its first three days of release.
‘Leo’ is the latest instalment in Kanagaraj’s LCU or Lokesh Cinematic Universe, which began with ‘Kaithi’ (2019), continued with ‘Vikram’ in 2022 and retrospectively included the 1986 title ‘Vikram’.
Characters from ‘Kaithi’ and the 2022 ‘Vikram’ make appearances in ‘Leo’. This is the second time that Vijay, known to his fans as ‘Thalapathy’ (commander), is teaming with Kanagaraj.
They previously collaborated on ‘Master’ which grossed $36 million. Vijay subsequently headlined ‘Beast’ (2022) and ‘Varisu’ (2023), both of which delivered numbers similar to ‘Master’.
With inputs from agencies