PK Is Not Actually India's Top-Grossing Movie Ever

In recent weeks India’s box office analysts and commentators have celebrated the fact that two of this summer’s films, the Salman Khan starring drama Bajrangi Bhaijaan and the Prabhas featuring action epic Baahubali: The Beginning, have become the country’s second and third highest grossing films in box office history behind the top-ranked Aamir Khan starring comedy PK.

PK’s worldwide gross finished at 7.4 billion Indian rupees (US$114 million) earlier this year, and Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Baahubali, still both in release and adding daily to their worldwide totals, are at 5.94 billion ($91 million) and 5.66 billion rupees ($87 million) respectively, as of today.

But by another measure—box office revenue in India alone—PK’s record as the most viewed theatrical film stands no longer. It has fallen to one of the more recent films.

If you ventured a guess that Salman Khan is India’s new box office king, you’d be wrong.

Against all odds, Baahubali: The Beginning, the first non-Hindi film to reach even the ranks of the top 10 biggest earners in theatrical release across India, now stands at the pinnacle, the highest grossing film in the country’s history.

The captivating Telugu-Tamil language visual feast, co-written and directed by the Hyderabad-based movie maestro S.S. Rajamouli, has not only swept its home language regions, it has also conquered Bollywood and most everywhere else it has played. Baahubali: The Beginning is now the preeminent pan-Indian movie.