Tamil superstar Vijay, starring in Director Lokesh Kanagaraj's Tamil-language film 'Leo: Bloody Sweet,' made an impressive debut in third place at the global box office over the past weekend, earning an estimated $31.2 million worldwide, as reported by Comscore. The weekend's top spot was claimed by Martin Scorsese's 'Killers of the Flower Moon,' featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone, which raked in $44 million. Following closely was 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,' with a strong performance at $41.5 million, according to 'Variety.'
However, 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’. An homage to David Cronenberg’s 2005 film ‘A History of Violence’, ‘Leo’ released on October 19.
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.
The film is produced by S.S. Lalit Kumar and Jagadish Palanisamy for Seven Screen Studio.
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 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 IANS inputs)