With nearly 600-odd releases in southern languages this year, it wouldn’t have been easy to get viewers’ attention. Innovative marketing Air Asia painted its body in ‘Kabali’ colours. Like Diwali bonus, we treated them to Kabali bonus,” Manoj Pushparaj of Opus Waterproofing told Hindustan Times then. It would also serve as a motivation to my employees. I could feel the eagerness in my employees, so instead of dealing with mass bunks and mobile switch offs, I came up with the idea of declaring a holiday on July 22 and be a part of the celebration. “This was an internal company circulation which was sent out on Sunday.
Fans shower flower petals on a cut-out board image of Rajinikanth on the facade of a movie theatre on the first day of release of his film Kabali in Bangalore on July 22, 2016.
Some even volunteered to provide free tickets in a bid to contain piracy. Bengaluru-based Opus Waterproofing and Chennai-based Fyndus India Pvt Ltd, to name a few, were quick to gauge the mood. What more, companies in Chennai and Bengaluru sensing the employees’ enthusiasm decided to declare a holiday on the release day. Hundreds of fans of Rajinikanth crowd outside a cinema hall to celebrate the screening of Kabali in Chennai, India, Friday, July 22, 2016. So unprecedented was the Kabali phenomenon that even international news websites and news agencies covered it. All national media platforms – digital and television – gave it a coverage that they often reserved for mega events, say a cricket match between India and Pakistan. But, with Kabali the enthusiasm reached crazy heights. Naturally then, witnessing fan frenzy in Tamil Nadu and wherever the Tamil diaspora was present was expected. The drums are out, the hoardings and cut-outs adorn the roads, the milk baths happen – in short it is madness. (AP)įor his fans, the release of a Rajini film is no less than a festival. National event Fans of Indian superstar Rajinikanth offer prayers in front of his poster outside a cinema hall to celebrate the screening of Kabali in Chennai, India, Friday, July 22, 2016. It raked in as much as Rs 53 crore gross, Times of India reported. It garnered the biggest opening of approximately Rs 46 crore that any Indian film has got so far beating Salman Khan-starrer Sultan. With its own star system and internal dynamics, southern cinema (Tamil and Telugu) has its own matrix. Along with Sultan, Kabali was the top Google trends in 2016.īiggest opening day for any Indian film Radhika Apte played don Kabali’s wife Kumudha in the film. We, of course, know how Baahubali changed all that. Of course, it was for the Hindi dubbed version but that too isn’t a common practice. Of course, it came nowhere close to a Hindi film but the very fact that multiplexes across Delhi and national capital region as well as Mumbai were willing to show the film on more than one screen tells something. But what was new this time was the buzz in the non-traditional markets – meaning the rest of India. For Kabali too the drama would have happened and it did. Before his films release, the scene in Tamil Nadu turns carnivalesque. Pre-release buzz Despite the massive publicity for Kabali that got thousands of Rajinikanth’s fans on a frenzied high, the film’s lead star seemed to have disappointed both critics and the man on street.įor his fans, Rajinikanth is God. It was an author-backed role where he essayed an ageing don fighting for the cause of Tamils in Malaysia. With Kabali, however, all that was expected to change – for Rajinikanth was finally playing his age. With Kabali, Rajinikanth was trying to reinvent himself.
All of this meant one thing – dwindling domestic ticket sales. Here was a star who was trying to cash in on his signature moves, dialogue delivery, et al – but what was missing were the characters that made these ‘antics’ meaningful. The inflow of money was on an even keel – thanks to nature of today’s movie business that allows a bad product sail through because of satellite and music rights that help rake in the moolah – but everyone could see the telltale signs.