From the 2022 Tamil romantic comedy Love Today to the 2022 Kannada action drama Kantara, there have been many low-budget regional films that have smashed records at the box office. Another addition to this list is the 2023 Malayalam disaster film 2018, based on the 2018 Kerala floods that devastated Kerala.
Directed by Jude Anthany Joseph, 2018 featured an ensemble cast consisting of Tovino Thomas, Kunchacko Boban, Asif Ali, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Aparna Balamurali, Kalaiyarasan, Narain, Lal, Indrans, Aju Varghese, Tanvi Ram, Sshivada, Siddique, and Gauthami Nair among others. The film was released in May 2023 to extremely positive reviews from the audiences and critics.
Made in just Rs 25 crore, the film earned Rs 110 crore gross (Rs 93 crore gross) in India and had an overseas collection of Rs 70 crore, taking the wordwide gross earnings to Rs 180 crore. When it released, 2018 surpassed Mohanlal's 2016 action-thriller Pulimurugan, which collected Rs 152 crore globally, to become the highest-grossing Malayalam film of all time. But, it held this record for less than an year as the 2024 survival drama Manjummel Boys overtook 2018 and is now the highest-grossing Malayalam film of all time, and also the first Malayalam film to earn Rs 200 crore worldwide.
The Jude Anthany Joseph directorial was sent as India's official entry to the 96th Academy Awards, famously known as the Oscars, in the Best International Feature Film category, but failed to reach the nomination stage. 2018 is now streaming on SonyLIV.
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