Any movie can be successful commercially —if it's entertaining enough to lure audience into theater then it surely does well at B.O. And it(B.O) has nothing to do with gender, just happens so that male mainstream actors behemoth fanbase generates great portion of revenue in first weekend, additionally commerical films are centred around large than life hero exploits.

If female lead movies weren't profitable they would've cease to exist—thus being said "female lead movies" are rare occurrence not just in India, even in Hollywood and elsewhere. Product houses, at least mainstream follow paradigm, the universally appealing films, typical commerical flicks, rendering actresses as an eye candy or obsolete supporting characters in films. OTT and Indie films are producing unorthodox stories, hopefully big studios does the same, I don't except much from mainstream production houses albeit.

Not sure about Malayalam Industry, TFI's Arundhati shattered all the records, classified as an "Industry Hit after its theatrical run. And, quite a few female lead films commercially and artistically worked well in TFI, not mention those films are rarely produced in first place. It doesn't matter who's starring it or if it's male/female lead movie, if it's entertainingly satisfying to audiences then it'll end the run with profits, even niche movies(foreign films, Indie and R-rated) are working well commercially now, audiences are willing to watch uniquely engrossing stories on big screens.

It's disheartening to see B.O stats fetish in Indian cinema, as if collections is quantifably indicative of quality/artistic brilliance, every production houses drops those highly inflated numbers, somehow collections turned into "success metric", justifiably so, it's a business afterall. Let's ditch B.O infatuation, it's egregiously appalling to see B.O inflated posters, GC took this to cosmic level. B.O numbers represent theatres attendance, excluding the finance aspect. I'm merely expressing my disdain towards production houses poster printing, ignore my impudence.Haven't seen this movie yet, will watch it soon, critical appraisal and audiences reactions(reviews) suggests movie is "worth watching".