Rajinikanth can't afford Kabali to be a flop

"Pressure" is not a term usually associated with Rajinikanth. Not even when his summer release Kabali comes on the back of two lacklustre performances at the box office.

Both Kochadaiiyaan and Lingaa in 2014 failed to give the adrenalin rush Rajini fans expect from their Thalaivar. Things even turned ugly with a court case involving Latha Rajinikanth for Kochadaiiyaan and distributors who claimed they had lost Rs 33 crore on Lingaa forcing Rajinikanth and producer Rockline Venkatesh to partially compensate them with Rs 10 crore.

With Kabali, Rajinikanth is charting a new path. A path more close to Amitabh Bachchan, an actor whose career almost went parallel with his in the '80s.

Rajini in Kollywood and Amitabh in Bollywood reigned at the box office with the two starring in several remakes of each other's hit films.

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Now like Bachchan is playing roles his age, the role of the ageing don in Kabali is more close to Rajini's real-life 65.

The style with which Rajini delivers the "Kabali da" line in the trailer is as if, reserved for the sceptics who may wonder if the master has lost the Midas touch.

It is with a chuckle and supreme self-confidence that Rajini announces his new screen avatar.

The 20 million hits the trailer has garnered so far, breaking records of Bollywood hits like PK, Dhoom 3 and even the Eid release of Salman Khan Sultan reaffirms Rajini's hold over his fans. It is a hero worship, difficult to explain. Rajini is without a doubt the style king of Indian cinema whose every signature step makes his fans go wow.

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The fact that Rajini has taken a road less travelled by the Superstar in recent times, gives hope to his more discerning admirers. Deciding not to play safe, Rajinikanth has been directed by a young director Pa Ranjith in Kabali.

And unlike the AR Rahman music that he has lip-synced to for the last two decades, Kabali will see a different sound in a Rajini film scored by Santhosh Narayanan.

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Unlike Kamal Haasan who is known for experimenting, Rajinikanth usually sticks to the formula that has made him what he is, with minor variations. In fact, whenever he has tried something different like in Baba in 2002, Rajini has delivered a dud. Which is why Kabali irrespective of how it is received at the box office, is an important film in Rajinikanth's career.

The belief among producers in Chennai is that if Rajini signs up for a film, it will guarantee goodbye to financial worries. Kabali's producer Kalaipuli S Thanu is among those who were promised by the Superstar that he will do a film with him, long ago.

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Rajini and Thanu go back a long way. In 1978, when Rajini's first solo movie as hero Bairavi was released, it was Thanu - the distributor of the movie - who christened him "Superstar" and erected a 40-feet tall cut-out of Rajinikanth at Plaza Theatre in Madras of that day, to announce the arrival of the new star.

Rajini was nervous because this was the time when the legend of Tamil cinema, Sivaji Ganesan still lorded over the big screen. Moreover, many folks in the industry were apprehensive if Rajinikanth - who had played only negative roles till then and had no conventional good looks to play the leading man - would make the cut. The first day's shows proved that Rajini had arrived. Thanu's prophecy had come true.

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For Thanu, it was a big moment too because Bairavi was his first movie as a distributor. He celebrated the success by printing a set of posters titled "The Greatest Superstar Rajinikanth in Bairavi" and sent them to Rajini's hometown, Bangalore. Rajini, who had worked as a bus conductor in Bangalore was now in the driver's seat in Kollywood.

Since then, the title of "Superstar" has struck to Rajinikanth. With Kabali that will release in 5,000 screens worldwide and has done business of Rs 200 crore even before its release in July, the Superstar would have repaid his debt to Thanu.