Director Nandini Reddy’s Kalyana Vaibhogame, starring Naga Shourya and Malavika Nair has released on March 4, amid less expectations. Even though, the breezy romantic entertainer has turned out to be a surprise hit. The film was made with a small budget of nearly 3.5 crores and it has already landed its distributors into profit zone in several areas.

One key area where the film registered a thumping victory is the overseas. The film has received a brilliant opening at the US box office, and is leading the U.S. collection chart for Telugu movies, beating other new releases “Guntur Talkies” and “Shourya”. It even made better collections than Priyanka Chopra’s Bollywood movie “Jai Gangaajal” at the US box office in the first weekend. The film approximately collected $39,237 at the US box office on the first day (including Thursday premieres).

Kalyana Vaibhogame’s US rights were sold for a meager sum of $25,000. Abhishekh Pictures, which has bought its overseas distribution rights, released the movie in 74 screens in North America. The film has so far collected nearly $150,000. This left the overseas buyers with a nett of nearly $125,000 and the final share could be anywhere around 75 lakhs.

To those wondering about who this lucky distributor was, it is none other than the film’s director Nandini Reddy herself. Inside buzz is that Nandini Reddy retained the film’s overseas rights as part of her deal with producer Damu and she struck gold as the film has been received quite well by the Telugu NRIs.

Nandini Reddy’s first project ‘Ala Modalaindi’ had tasted huge success despite being a small film, but her second film Jabardasth hadn’t done well. She had written the story of ‘Kalyana Vaibhogame’ nine years ago, before she made Ala Modalaindi. The “romantic dramedy”, as she calls it, looks at marriage from the view of different generations.