Prabhas in the film. (courtesy: YouTube)
The 20-day report card of Prabhas' Salaar: Cease Fire - Part 1 is finally out. The Prashanth Neel directorial continues to reign at the box office and is showing no signs of slowing down. On day 20, the film, which tells the gripping tale of friends turned foes, minted ₹ 2 crore (across all languages) at the domestic box office, as per Sacnilk. After this, the total collection of Salaar, which is just inches away from the ₹ 400 crore mark at the Indian box office, stands at ₹ 399.85 crore. Set in the fictional city-state of Khansaar, Salaar was released in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Apart from Prabhas essaying the role of Deva, the film has remarkable performances by Prithviraj Sukumaran as Vardharaja Mannaar aka Vardha and Shruti Haasan as Aadhya.
Salaar managed to make such humongous box office numbers despite being awarded an Adults Only (A) certificate. Ahead of the release of Salaar, director Prashanth Neel and actors Prabhas and Prithviraj Sukumaran sat down for a chat with director SS Rajamouli and addressed the issue. About the film getting an A certificate, Prashanth Neel said, "This story is all about Deva and Vardha, Salaar is a drama at its core. I've seen Telugu cinema for years now and the violence in my film is pale compared to that. The idea was never to make a film so violent it gets an A. But the guidelines have changed and the censor board asked me to make certain cuts. I got so quiet when they said that because I didn't make a vulgar movie. The violence in the film is needed. I was disappointed, but Prabhas told me it's okay."
In a separate interview with PTI, Prashanth Neel spoke about his brand of filmmaking. He said, “We make a movie to tell a story and we want the right characters, right actors to portray every role. There's a commercial aspect with a star and we get bigger budgets to do what we want. But the criteria is the same that this is the character, it is not the hero who is playing the hero because if we think like that then we have lost the battle," he added.”
Salaar clashed with Shah Rukh Khan's Dunki at the box office. The Rajkumar Hirani directorial hit the theatres on December 21, while Salaar was released on December 22. Up next, Prabhas will share screen space with Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan in Nag Ashwin's Kalki 2898 AD.