Peddi Worldwide Box Office Collection: Ram Charan Film Falls Flat After Janhvi Kapoor Row

After registering a historic, record-shattering opening weekend, director Buchi Babu Sana’s sports action drama Peddi has experienced a steep decline at the global ticket window.

The film, which features mega power star Ram Charan playing an elite, marginalized athlete fighting for his community’s basic identity through wrestling and track sports, saw its blistering momentum grind to single-digit collections by the conclusion of its first week. Released on June 4, 2026, to a massive opening gross of over ₹100 crore worldwide on Day 1 alone, Peddi has hit a sudden roadblock, earning merely ₹6.30 crore net domestically on its eighth day in theaters.

This sharp 16.6% drop from its Day 7 haul (₹7.55 crore) leaves the high-budget entertainer struggling to cross the prestigious ₹300 crore worldwide gross threshold. As it stands on Day 8, Peddi has amassed an India net total of ₹193.55 crore (translating to a domestic gross of roughly ₹230 crore). In international territories, the sports drama has completely flattened out, trickling in just over $600K on Thursday to bring its cumulative overseas haul to $5 million (₹49.40 crore gross). This places the total global box office standing at ₹279 crore gross, trailing unexpectedly behind the lifetime records of contemporary releases like OG (₹295 crore) and Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu (₹300 crore).

The Janhvi Kapoor Portrayal Controversy Triggers Severe Backlash

Trade experts and industry insiders point directly toward the intense, polarizing public outrage surrounding the treatment of the film’s female lead, Janhvi Kapoor (who plays Achiyyamma), as the primary catalyst for the early collapse of its theater footprint. Audiences and film critics severely slammed the project immediately following its premiere, accusing the creators of utilizing jarring camera angles that targeted Kapoor’s body with an overwhelming male gaze rather than developing her character. Public anger was further exacerbated by a highly problematic romantic sequence wherein Ram Charan’s character forcefully kisses her without apparent consent—a beat presented on-screen as playful courtship.

“In this process, a few shots turned misleading. We have taken corrective measures to remove them, and we have removed them.” — Director Buchi Babu Sana in a Statement to SCREEN

As the digital outcry transformed into a wider cultural conversation on gender representation and consent in cinema, director Buchi Babu Sana issued an explicit public apology, admitting he had completely failed to anticipate such a severe reaction. To minimize further damage to the film’s commercial prospects, the production houses quickly initiated corrective measures to trim down and permanently excise the hypersexualized edits and problematic frames from the active theater prints. While supporting cast members like Jagapathi Babu defensively claimed that the negative reviews inadvertently boosted public awareness, the crashing theater occupancy indicates a starkly different story.

The North Indian Market Fails to Ignite

The aggressive push to project Peddi as an authentic pan-India cinematic event has failed to yield results in the North Indian territories. Despite organizing an expansive promotional launch in Bhopal and loading the billing with recognizable Bollywood and Hindi-adjacent mainstays like Divyenndu and Boman Irani, the Hindi dubbed version generated next to no impact at the box office.

The Hindi market accounted for less than 5% of the total revenue pool, limping across the ₹17 crore net line after eight days. In contrast, the original Telugu version shouldered the entire commercial burden, netting over ₹173 crore to establish Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as the solitary strongholds keeping the movie’s theatrical run afloat.