A still from Salaar. (courtesy: YouTube)
Prashanth Neel's Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire has truly emerged as a box office winner. In the first week, the film, headlined by Prabhas, entered the Rs 300-crore club. On day 8, the movie, which revolves around two childhood friends-turned-enemies, has minted Rs 10 crore (across all languages), as reported by Sacnilk. So far, Salaar has collected Rs 318 crore at the domestic box office. Salaar was released in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. In addition to Prabhas, the movie also stars Shruti Haasan, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Sriya Reddy, and Saran Shakthi.
Although Salaar is receiving love from all parts of India, director Prashanth Neel had said that he did not make the movie with pan-India success in mind. Before the film's release, Prashanth told news agency PTI, “I've written a story and I've executed it. I don't know if it (Salaar) is going to be a pan-India movie or not. But if it becomes a pan-India movie, then that's an absolute bonus for all of us. Like, 'KGF' happened very organically. Movies that happen organically always do well. You can't plan to make a pan-India movie, you can't plan and say that I'm going to bring these actors from this industry to make it a pan-India movie. It doesn't work like that."
In an NDTV review, film critic Saibal Chatterjee gave Salaar 2.5 stars and said, “The visual palette of the film is composed of muted hues rather than full splashes of stark colour. Salaar: part 1 is set in what looks and feels like an exceedingly dim universe where the stray rays of light that are visible are never of the uninterrupted and illuminating kind. The subdued visuals, halfway through the second half, are punctuated with the dull russet of the saris, a couple of brightly designed umbrellas and a multi-coloured kite and then, in the climactic passages, broken by the sight of blood.”
Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire was released on December 22.