Rajinikanth’s last release Kabali collected Rs 211 crore from the Indian box office, out of which only about 18% came from north India
Kaala hit nearly 700 screens in Tamil Nadu but saw tepid advance bookings and has got off to a very slow start, unlikely for a Rajinikanth-starrer. However, bookings showed a northward trend in Telengana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and analysts are not ruling out a housefull weekend at theatres down south.
“Telengana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are housefull in most of the properties but north India's response is just about average. We are hoping that word of mouth will help the movie,” said Rajender Singh, chief programming officer at Inox Leisure Limited.
According to Singh, the controversy surrounding Rajinikanth's statements has made the film even more popular. “Just like Padmaavat turned out to be a huge hit, irrespective of all the controversies it courted, Kaala too might turn out to be huge hit given Rajinikanth’s popularity and track record,” Singh added.
But Rajinikanth’s films haven’t been doing too well in the northern states in the recent past. “The Hindi version of Rajinikanth’s film hardly saw success. Robot was the last commercial success in the north but that was in 2010. While there are no big Bollywood releases this week and word of mouth may help Kaala to an extent, there are many who haven’t watched Veere Di Wedding yet. Bollywood fans would give it the first preference for the weekend and the crowd in north India might also prefer Jurassic World-Fallen Kingdom to Kaala,” said film trade analyst Atul Mohan.
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Rajinikanth’s last release Kabali collected Rs 211 crore from the Indian box office, out of which only about 18% came from north India.
In 2014, Kochadaiiyaan made a total of Rs 70 crore of which a very small percentage came from the northern states. Similarly, Lingaa in the same year made Rs 110 crore during its lifetime run in the Indian market and only a negligible percentage came from its Hindi version.