Pawan Kalyan’s They Call Him OG — the gangster drama directed by Sujeeth and produced by DVV Entertainment — opened on September 25, 2025, and turned its extended opening weekend into one of the biggest Telugu box office events of the year. The film, which released in Telugu along with dubbed versions in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, carried an A certificate and a 154-minute runtime. Here is the complete collection picture, compiled from leading trade trackers. Figures vary slightly between trackers, so treat these as reported estimates rather than audited finals.
The opening was thunderous. According to Pinkvilla’s day-wise tracking, the film collected approximately Rs 88.5 crore gross in India on its opening Thursday alone. Trade reports pegged the day-one worldwide gross at roughly Rs 154 crore, powered substantially by paid premieres, which alone contributed about Rs 20.25 crore — a figure larger than the entire opening day of many mid-budget Telugu hits. It was immediately counted among the biggest Indian openers of 2025.
The day-wise India gross run, as tracked by Pinkvilla, shows a classic front-loaded blockbuster curve. Thursday: Rs 88.50 crore. Friday: Rs 23.00 crore. Saturday: Rs 23.75 crore. Sunday: Rs 23.50 crore. Monday: Rs 9.50 crore. Tuesday: Rs 9.00 crore. Wednesday: Rs 8.00 crore. The second Thursday added Rs 9.25 crore, taking the eight-day extended first-week India total to Rs 194.50 crore. The second weekend added Rs 5.75 crore (Friday), Rs 4.50 crore (Saturday) and Rs 4.25 crore (Sunday), pushing the eleven-day India gross to Rs 209 crore.
Overseas, the film did strong business for a Telugu release. After eleven days, international markets had contributed USD 7.05 million (approximately Rs 62.5 crore), taking the worldwide gross to Rs 271.5 crore. Filmibeat’s later lifetime tallies put the film at Rs 295.10 crore worldwide, with an India net of Rs 194.06 crore, an India gross of Rs 229.85 crore and Rs 65.25 crore from overseas.
Trade verdict: HIT. Pinkvilla noted that the film became the highest-grossing Telugu film of the year globally at that point, surpassing Sankranthiki Vasthunam. The run was not without headwinds — hiked ticket prices, a recurring issue for big Telugu releases, dented weekday occupancies even as they inflated the opening; the A certificate kept some family audiences away during the festive period; and competition from Kantara: Chapter 1 ate into screens in the second week. Distributors in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had bought the film at steep prices and needed around Rs 250 crore to break even — a target the box office itself was never quite going to meet, a function of acquisition costs rather than audience rejection.
Territory-wise, the film was overwhelmingly a Telugu-states phenomenon: roughly Rs 166 crore of the India total came from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with Karnataka contributing about Rs 18.25 crore and the rest of India around Rs 6.25 crore. That concentration is typical for Pawan Kalyan’s stardom, which remains most explosive in his home markets.
We will keep updating this tracker as trade sources revise the lifetime totals — check back for the final audited numbers.
