Malayalam actor-filmmaker Prithviraj Sukumaran’s upcoming directorial L2: Empuraan has crossed the opening day collection of his previous film Aadujeevitham: The Goat Life in pre-sales itself.

According to industry data-tracking portal Sacnilk, Empuraan has collected Rs 9 crore gross in advance bookings, crossing the Rs 8.85 crore gross opening day collection of The Goat Life, which Prithviraj acted in and distributed.

A significant portion of the bookings comes from the Malayalam version, which has sold over 4.7 lakh tickets, generating Rs 7.3 crore gross in revenue, according to Sacnilk.

The Telugu version comes a distant second with 1,643 tickets sold for a revenue of Rs 0.44 crore gross. The Kannada and Tamil versions have sold 218 tickets cumulatively, earning Rs 33,440.

Among the states, Kerala leads in pre-sales with Rs 6.88 crore gross from 2,549 shows. Karnataka comes a close second with advance booking worth Rs 0.95 crore gross from 371 shows. Telangana and Tamil Nadu contributed Rs 0.17 crore gross and Rs 0.14 crore gross, respectively, from 62 and 57 shows.

The film has also made an impact in non-Southern markets. Maharashtra has reported Rs 0.14 crore gross in advance bookings across 128 shows, while Delhi-NCR region has seen Rs 0.02 crore gross in pre-release sales from 36 shows.

However, the record for the biggest opening day collection in Kerala remains with Thalapathy Vijay’s Leo, which collected Rs 12 crore nett on its first day. With five days to release, it remains to be seen whether Empuraan can surpass Leo.

A sequel to Prithviraj Sukumaran’s 2019 political action thriller Lucifer, L2: Empuraan marks Mohanlal’s return as Khureshi Ab’raam aka Stephen Nedumpally. Prithviraj Sukumaran plays Khureshi’s comrade, Zayed Masood.

The film also stars Tovino Thomas, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Aamir Khan’s elder sister Nikhat Khan, Manju Warrier, Jerome Flynn, Indrajith Sukumaran, Kaarthikeyaa Dev, Kishore Kumar G, Sukant Goel and British actress Andrea Tivadar.