Oct 25, 2026 6:49pm IST
‘The Eken: Kerala-e Kurukshetra’ Actor Anirban Chakrabarti On His Film’s Golden Box Office Run, After First Week (EXCLUSIVE)
Anirban Chakrabarti and filmmaker Joydeep Mukherjee's film “The Eken: Kerala-e Kurukshetra” has made ₹7.01 crore net at the end of its first week as per Sacnilk. The detective franchise film along with "Bohurupi: The Golden Daku," which made Rs 7.24 crore net (at the end of its first week) as per the box office tracker, brought spark to the West Bengal box office during Durga Puja 2026.
An overjoyed Anirban Chakrabarti tells Variety India, "The ‘Eken Babu’ web series started in 2018, while the first feature film, ‘The Eken’ came out in 2022. Both the versions have been extremely successful so far. In fact, I believe we started making feature films out of web series way before Hindi makers thought on similar lines.”
On the reason a bumbling detective is such a beloved character trope with Bengali family audiences, he opines, “It is the relatability quotient. People easily identify him as one of the next-door uncles who is funny, clumsy and distinctly Bengali. At the same time, he is sharp and deeply observant. The comedy is also very rooted in Bengali culture and quirks, which adds to the charm.”
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Anirban Chakrabarti lauds makers for the wide release of the movie. He says, “I am glad that we have multi-genre movies on Durga Puja for audiences to watch. They can watch one every day. For this film, we have selected shows in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar and so on. We also managed to get some shows for the expatriate Bengali community. And no, I do not feel any pressure competing with other big Bengali films. I would term it as a responsibility to deliver the best for our loyal fans.”
The character has been synonymous with Chakrabarti over the years. He also reveals how he is grateful for getting diverse roles that keeps his interest in ‘Eken Babu’ fresh. He asserts, “I did get a number of bumbling detective roles after the success of the series but at the same time, I was getting other characters, including grey-shaded ones. That helped me avoid stereotyping and stay excited for this one.” He desires to be a part of a mature romance though. “I am not a horror fan but I did psychological horror-thrillers and mythology-horror as I liked the scripts but romance is one genre I love. I want to star in a romantic film/series, age-appropriate one, of course (laughs),” he adds.
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Chakrabarti shares that he got offers for some Hindi web series but none of them matched his expectations. “All of them wanted me as a typical Bengali character or the role was too insignificant. I am ready to put in the hard work to learn a new language and all but the roles hardly mattered in the script. I do wish to go pan-India with something that does not really appeal to me,” he says.
He admits that the West Bengal film industry is facing some big challenges. “I do not have any answer to why Bengali content is not travelling beyond the state. On the positive side, I feel our makers try to deliver their state in tight budget constraints. My actor friends from other industries are shocked when I mention the budgets of my projects. South India has benefitted from their loyal fan culture. It has taken their content all over the globe. That is sadly missing in West Bengal.”
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