New Delhi | Actor Prithviraj Sukumaran's directorial “L2: Empuraan”, starring Mohanlal, earned Rs 22 crore across India on its opening day, according to trade tracking website Sacnilk.

"L2: Empuraan", which released in theatres on Thursday, is the second installment of the action franchise "Lucifer". Malayalam cinema star Mohanlal reprises his role of Stephen Nedumpally aka Khureshi-Ab'raam from the previous movie.

According to Sacnilk's early estimates, the film collected Rs 19.45 crores in Malayalam, Rs 1.2 crores in Telugu, Rs 80 lakh in Tamil, Rs 50 lakh in Hindi, and Rs five lakh in Kannada.

The film team's are yet to share the official box office figures. On Wednesday, the makers claimed that "L2: Empuraan" had collected Rs 80 crore through pre-sale reservations alone.

Previously, the highest opening collection for a Malayalam movie in India was Prithviraj's “Aadujeevitham” (2024), which amassed over Rs 7.6 crores nett on day one. And before that, Mohanlal's national-award winning film “Marakkar: The Lion of The Arabian Sea” earned Rs 6.8 crore nett when it was released in 2021.

Touted to be one of the costliest productions of Malayalam cinema, "L2: Empuraan" is produced by Antony Perumbavoor, Gokulam Gopalan and Subaskaran Allirajah.

The film, written by Murali Gopy, features an ensemble cast including Prithviraj, Tovino Thomas, Abhimanyu Singh, Manju Warrier, Jerome Flynn and Eriq Ebouaney.