L2 Empuraan is the highest Malayalam film worldwide, but still lags behind this Malayalam film in India, which earned Rs.
Despite the political rebound, L2:Empuraan directed by Mohanlal-Starrer and Prithviraj Sukumaran became the highest-grossing Malayalam film in the world. However, the 2025 action thriller is still not the highest-grossing Malayalam movie in India.
Headlined by Mohanlal and helmed by Prithviraj Sukumaran, the action thriller L2: Empuraan or Empuraan – Lucifer 2 broke several box office records upon its release on March 27. Firstly, it scored the biggest global opening of Rs 67 crore in Malayalam cinema, then became the first Malayalam film to earn Rs 100 crore at the overseas box office, and finally, the movie also became the world’s highest-grossing Malayalam film became the first film in Malayalam to violate Rs 25 billion worldwide. The 2025 version creates all these records in ten days; however, the Lucifer sequel is not the highest-grossing Malayalam movie in India. The record is preserved by the 2024 Survival Thriller Manjummel Boy.
Written and directed by Chidambaram, Manjummel Boys is based on the true story of 11 friends from a nominal town in Kerala who start a trip to Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu and finds themselves in a life or death condition when one of them falls into Guna Caves. This incident happened in 2006 and is the basis of the 2024 film. It became the first Malayalam film to win Rs 20 billion. At the end of its 70-day drama run, Manjummel Boys received a net of Rs 1.41 crore and a box office of Rs 1.67 crore in India, and sold Rs 2.4 billion worldwide and received Rs 7.3 crore in overseas collections.
On the other hand, L2: Empuraan is the sequel to Superhit Lucifer 2019 and the second part of the planned Lucifer Trilogy, which collected a net of Rs 100.3 crore and a box office of Rs 12 billion in India, raising Rs 262.755 worldwide and earning the first 142 Crore global revenue, currently at Rs 142, up until now. We will have to wait and see if director Prithviraj Sukumaran can span Chidambaran films in his domestic revenue.
One reason Empuraan failed to replicate its overseas collection in India is the enormous political backlash it faces across the country, as its subtle mention of the 2002 Gujarat riots with Kerala’s Hindutva group calling for boycotting it. After a huge uproar, Mohanlal shared a statement saying the empuraan team regretted hurting the people’s emotions, and the producers voluntarily made 24 cuts. But even after this controversy, the Lucifer sequel set such a huge record that it would be difficult to achieve for any other Malayalam film. The only movie that could break the Empuraan record in the Malayalam film will be the third film in the Lucifer Trilogy – L3: Beginning.
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