Indian robot movie breaks box office record for money, badassness

India’s most expensive movie ever, Endhiran, aka The Robot, aka A Giant Cobra Made of Robot Men Slithers Around Eating Cars, opened in India in three languages last Friday, and surprise surprise, the $35 million-budgeted romp is breaking box-office records.  And if the crew didn’t celebrate by dancing, everything I know about India is wrong.

“In the opening weekend, all the three versions of Robot have together collected 950 million rupees (21 million dollars), the highest-ever in India,” said Komal Nahta, a Bollywood trade analyst.  …with sales twice that of the previous record opener — Bollywood star Salman Khan’s recent hit “Dabaang”.
Accurate box office figures are hard to come by in India. An independent industry website, boxofficeindia.com, said “Endhiran” had taken in 12.4 million dollars over the weekend — a far lower estimate, but still a record.

Theatres are running shows of Endhiran as early as 4:00am in star Rajinikanth’s stronghold southern city of Chennai, where fans have been seen queuing up for tickets.
In Chennai, a 61-foot-poster was created close to a theatre where the movie was released. Some fans washed the poster with milk — as offered to Hindu Gods — a sign of purity. Some celebrated the release by bursting crackers, beating drums and showering the movie screen with flowers.
In Mumbai, Bollywood’s hometown, fans offered prayers at a local theatre and the reel of the movie was offered in worship at a nearby temple, after which it was made available for public viewing.

In related news, M. Night Shyamalan recently cut short a jog after he was hit by a bag of dog poop from a passing car.

Man, between making hit movies and hiring big, angry monkeys to scare away the smaller monkeys, it seems like India’s got it all figured out.