The Big Picture

  • Despite poor reviews and controversy, Animal has raked in over $50 million worldwide in just five days, with $30 million coming from India.
  • The film had one of the best opening weekends in Bollywood history, earning $42 million, making it the second-biggest opening for a Bollywood film.
  • Animal has been criticized for its portrayal of toxic masculinity and glorifying its problematic protagonist, leading to a low score of 32% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Bollywood crime epic Animal is continuing to defy poor reviews and a raging controversy with massive numbers at the box office. After finishing its opening weekend as the world’s number one film, ahead of holdovers such as Napoleon and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Animal crossed the $50 million mark at the global box office in just five days of release, of which over $30 million has come from its home country India and nearly $7 million from domestic theaters.

Directed by the provocateur Sandeep Reddy Vanga and starring Ranbir Kapoor, handily the most bankable Bollywood star of his generation, Animal has grossed ₹425 crore ($50 million) at the worldwide box office so far. This comes after it delivered one of the best opening weekend hauls in the history of Bollywood — that’s Hindi-language cinema, not all of Indian cinema. The movie made $42 million worldwide in its first weekend, which marked the second-biggest opening for a Bollywood film, sandwiched between Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan ($64 million across five days) and Pathaan ($37 million) from earlier this year.

It also marked the biggest start for Kapoor, who hails from “the first family of Bollywood.” The actor has had a rather uneven post-pandemic run, which includes the outright bomb Shamshera followed by two modest hits, the superhero filmBrahmāstra: Part One – Shiva, and the romantic comedy Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar. His biggest hit remains Sanju, a biopic of the Indian actor Sanjay Dutt, which grossed nearly $70 million worldwide in 2018. Animal is tracking to overtake Sanju in a few days, and will soon enter the list of the top five Indian movies of 2023.

'Animal' Is Being Criticized for Its Glorification of Toxic Masculinity

But it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the three and a half hour epic. The movie has been criticized for its portrayal of toxic masculinity, and for glorifying the actions of its deeply problematic protagonist. Kapoor plays Ranvijay, the scion of a business empire, whose lifelong daddy issues explode when his father is shot at by rivals. Ranvijay goes on a blood-soaked revenge mission, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

The movie currently sits at a “rotten” 32% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time that Vanga has faced criticism for his creative choices. Although he hasn’t yet delivered a flop in his short career, the filmmaker has earned an unusual level of creative control and pop-culture relevance thanks to his two previous hits, the Telugu-language romantic thriller Arjun Reddy, and its Hindi-language remake, Kabir Singh. Also starring Rashmika Mandanna, Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol, Animal is playing in theaters. You can watch the film’s trailer here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.