Vijay Sethupathi's ‘Ace’ opens with Rs 1 crore

Vijay Sethupathi’s latest release, ‘Ace’, hit the big screens on May 23, 2025, but its opening day numbers suggest a modest start.Ace Movie ReviewAs per early estimates reported by the Sacnilk website, the film earned Rs 1.00 crore net across all languages on its first day in India — a surprisingly low figure for a star of Vijay Sethupathi’s stature, even with decent reviews from audiences.

Limited footfall in Tamil Nadu

In its primary market, Tamil Nadu, ‘Ace’ registered an overall occupancy of 16.51% in the Tamil version across 2D screenings. Chennai showed the most enthusiasm, with occupancy touching 41% in night shows, pushing the overall city average to 29.25%. However, other regions like Coimbatore (15.75%) and Madurai (15.75%) reflected only average interest. The film saw its weakest Tamil performance in Bengaluru, with just 7.75% overall occupancy.

Breakdown of Tamil (2D) occupancy on opening day:

Telugu Version also opens soft

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Telugu version of Ace opened with an overall 16.20% occupancy. Hyderabad offered relatively better support, logging 18.50% overall occupancy, with 21% during the afternoon. However, places like Vijayawada (16.25%) showed moderate interest, while Bengaluru had a low 2% occupancy in Telugu screenings.Telugu (2D) occupancy on Day 1:

Word-of-mouth could still help

Despite a low opening, ‘Ace’ has received decent feedback from audiences, which could help build momentum over the weekend.

ETimes gave the film a rating of 3 stars out of 5 and our official review reads, “Vijay Sethupathi injects some charisma into the role, and has lowkey fun with material that’s less demanding of the actor in him, much like how Kamal Haasan used to in films like Guru and Sattam in the 1980s. Rukmini, in her Tamil debut, passes muster; while her expressions are spot on, her lip-sync, though, is quite off in many places. To give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe her lines were rewritten during the dubbing stage.

Babloo Prithveeraj and BS Avinash are okayish as the antagonists while Divya Pillai has little to do in an underwritten role. Thankfully, Yogi Babu is in good form here, and it is his comic counters that make the film entertaining to the extent it is.”