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A thread on Kannada film industry hits. Industry hit means the film collecting highest gross collection till date. So any movie creating all time record collection till date will be termed industry hits. This info provided in the thread is by a quora user by name Nithin.
1.Shankar Guru(1978) was reported to be the first Kannada movie to gross more than 3.25 crores. This was higher than that of Babruvaahana (1977) which had reportedly collected 3 crores - first time a Kannada movie had crossed the 3 crore mark.
The record was not bettered for next 5 years - which was till then the longest duration for an industry hit. All the movies before that too starred Rajkumar in the lead role.
2.Rajkumar's Kaviratna Kalidasa (1983) bettered his own record with an estimated collection of 4.5 crores. This was his last industry hit.
3.Bandhana(1984) broke it's records giving Vishnuvardhan his first industry hit. This was also a first industry hit by second generation actor and also the first non - Rajkumar movie to achieve the feat. The movie is estimated to cross 4.5 crores but failed to touch 5 crores.
4.The record was broken by third generation actor V Ravichandran through Premaloka (1987). This is considered to be the first Kannada movie to gross 5 crore.
5.The next movie to better this record was Raghavendra Rajkumar's unexpected megahit Nanjundi Kalyana (1989) with an estimated collection of more than 6 crores.
6. Next industry grosser was Om (1995) starring Shivarajkumar with an estimated collection of more than 10.5 crores - giving Kannada it's first 10 crore movie.
7.The record was bettered by Janumada Jodi(1996) with an estimated collection of 11 crores . This movie too starred Shivarajkumar. It was also the first instance where an actor other than Rajkumar had churned out back to back industry hits.
8. The most shocking entrant has to be Circle Inspector(1999) starring Devraj with an estimated collection of 13 crores.
9. The record was subsequently broken by Vishnuvardhan's Yajamana(2000) which gave Kannada it's first 20 crore movie.
10.Up next was Apthamitra (2003) which made Vishnuvardhan the third actor to give to back to back industry hits. The collection was estimated to have crossed 25 crores - first for a Kannada movie.
11. Jogi( 2005) starring Shivarajkumar was reported to have highest collections among Kannada movies at that time ( with an estimate of 35 crores) - first Kannada movie to cross 30 crores.
12.The record was broken by Mungaaru Male (2006) starring Ganesh( which had a varied box office collection ranging from 50 crore to 60 crore).The record was held for 10 years highest duration for an industry hit beating the record set by Shankar Guru which had held it for 6 years
Surprisingly, it took almost 8 years for the next movie to equal the record and more than a decade to break it.
13.After that, Mr. & Mrs. Ramachari (2014) starring Yash and Kirik Party(2016) starring Rakshit Shetty were reported to have collected 50 crore and before that Darshan's SangoLLi RaayaNNa(2012) was also reported to have grossed 40 crore
( but none were ever reported to have surpassed Mungaaru Male collection. Both Kirik Party and Mr and Mrs Ramachari were considered to have equalled Mungaru Male record).
14.Finally, after more than a decade , it's records were broken by Rajkumara(2017) starring Puneeth Rajkumar with an estimated collection of 75 crore.
15.Ultimately, last year, Yash's KGF surpassed all the movies with around 250 crores via theatrical collections ( all languages - all over excluding digital). This was Kannada industry's first 100 crore movie. In Karnataka itself, it grossed 133 crores
( thereby breaking the Baahubali 2 records in Karnataka - which till then was movie with highest collections in Karnataka with 130 crores). This record probably will be broken only by KGF 2. If that happens, Yash will be the fourth one to give back to back industry hits.
This entire thread has been compiled all thanks to Niteesh shanbog reply in the thread. https://www.quora.com/Which-Kannada-movies-have-the-highest-collection-figures
