Custody box office day 3 collection: Naga Chaitanya film earns less than ₹9 crore in opening weekend

Custody box office: Naga Chaitanya film, in which he plays a constable, has earned ₹8.6 crore in three days of its release.

Actor Naga Chaitanya’s latest release Custody, which was simultaneously released in Tamil and Telugu, registered a disastrous start at the box-office as it collected less than ₹9 crore in its opening weekend, as per trade sources. The Venkat Prabhu directorial features Chaitanya in the role of a police constable.

Naga Chaitanya plays a constable in Custody.

Released amid high anticipation, Custody failed to make a mark at the box-office and ended up crashing in its opening weekend itself. Trade analyst Trinath confirmed that the film grossed around ₹8.6 crore in its opening weekend.

“The film had a disastrous start at the box-office. In its first weekend, the film collected just ₹8.6 crore and its fate has already been sealed. Even though released amid very high expectations, it will end up as a dud for Naga Chaitanya,” Trinath said.

The project marked Chaitanya’s foray into Tamil industry. He had dubbed his own lines in Tamil for the first time. In a pre-release press interaction, Chaitanya said that he was excited to play a constable, a role that’s rarely explored in mainstream cinema.

“It is a role that has not been explored much in recent times. Constables are fresh out of training and they have the fire in them to make a change. The future is in their hands,” he said.

Custody also marked the Telugu debut of director Venkat Prabhu. On the decision to make the film as a bilingual, he said in a press interaction: “I’ve always tried to make films in different genres within the commercial template. When I got an opportunity to pitch this idea to Chay (Naga Chaitanya), it was a no-brainer to make it bilingual. Chay has been waiting for the right project to get launched in Tamil and I was looking for an opportunity as well to enter the Telugu market. This felt like the perfect film.”

Each scene in the film was shot twice. “We’ve shot this as a proper bilingual film. We literally shot every scene twice in two languages. I enjoyed the process because Chay knows Tamil well. Therefore, I didn’t have to struggle much and could extract what I exactly wanted,” he added.