Why Rajinikanth's Kaala is not setting advance booking counters on fire
By the high standards set by Rajinikanth, this is bound to raise more than an eyebrow. The response to advance booking for Kaala in theatres in Tamil Nadu, including Chennai has been lacklustre, with tickets booked only for June 7 and 8 in most theatres.
The weekend has largely gone unbooked, something rather unprecedented, and if you try, you may still get a ticket for a show on the first day. Same is the case with the Telugu version of Kaala in Hyderabad.
The Superstar's releases are usually like Diwali come early for fans. We have seen Rajini fans throng the Kasi theatre in Chennai at 4am and burst firecrackers till the Tamil Nadu Milk Federation raised an objection before the release of Kabali in 2016. The fans used Rajini's cut-outs for lavish milkabhishekam. IT companies are known to book seats in bulk for their employees to watch it over the weekend.
The response to Kaala so far has been comparatively muted. Surprising, because this is the first movie release since he announced his political entry on December 31, 2017. Kaala, to quote Rajinikanth, is not a political film but has politics in it and usually there are many whistle podu moments for Rajini's politically loaded punch dialogues.
What then explains the lack of form by the king of box office opening in Tamil Nadu?
There seems to be a sense of deja vu. This is the second consecutive movie Rajinikanth is doing with Pa Ranjith wielding the megaphone and Santhosh Narayanan scoring the music. The songs suffer from a Kabalisque hangover, more sound and fury than melody. Despite producer Dhanush insisting that Rajini's character will have a local mass flavour in Kaala, on the ground it is being perceived more as a Ranjith than as a Rajini product.
The trailer too failed to connect in the way Kabali teasers did. It had no surprise element and seemed to give away the plot of the movie.
Kaala will see Rajini in the title role of the don of Dharavi slum in Mumbai, who exhorts his people to revolt against politicians and vested interests who want to take over their land. The film is releasing in the backdrop of what happened in Tuticorin where 13 locals were shot dead by the police on May 22 after protests against the Sterlite plant that they accused of abusing their land, air and water, causing serious health and environmental issues.
Given his role, Rajini the newly minted politician would have been expected to be firmly on the side of the people of Tuticorin. Instead, when he visited the town, he launched into a broadside against "anti-social elements", who had vandalised the collectorate and attacked the police, calling for a Jayalalithaa-like iron fist approach.
Continuous protests will convert Tamil Nadu into a graveyard, he said rather angrily. While it is understood that he is merely an actor mouthing dialogues written by someone else on camera, this sharp contrast between his reel and real persona has not gone down too well.
Kabali producer S Thanu is a marketing guru. He is the person who christened Rajinikanth as "Superstar" way back in 1978, with a cut-out of the upcoming actor in the heart of Chennai (then called Madras). In the run-up to Kabali, he got AirAsia to sport the actor's visage, with a special flight organised for Rajini fans to fly from Bengaluru to Chennai as part of a package. Dhanu created enough hype around the product ensuring the film's success. He has been described on Twitter as someone who could sell ice boxes even to Eskimos. In contrast, Kaala promotions have been rather low-key.
Also Kaala was originally scheduled for release in April. That would have attracted the summer vacation crowd. Now with schools reopening this week, the weekdays are not an attractive proposition for the family audience.
Kaala is also competing with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which also releases this week. While Rajini's film, undoubtedly will be a bigger draw, especially in south India, the sequel to Jurassic World will provide stiff competition. It will be a battle of the screens for box-office supremacy. While Kaala is releasing across 2,000 screens, the Hollywood production with its English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil versions will be out across 2,300 screens.
But this is not to mean Kaala, made at a cost of Rs 150 crore, will not be a commercial blockbuster. Word of mouth publicity will be key as those who watch it on the first two days will decide whether the weekend goes house full or not.
But is the possibility of a commercial loss also playing on the mind of those who are associated with Kaala? At the pre-release event in Hyderabad on May 4, NV Prasad, who is distributing the film in Andhra, went down memory lane to recall how Rajini compensated him for the losses incurred on Baba in 2002.
"When Baba was released, Rajinikanth personally called me and asked how the film had done. I told him the film incurred a loss of Rs 1.6 crore. Rajini sir gave me Rs 1.61 crore,'' said Prasad. His intention may have been to highlight what a kind man Rajinikanth is but in the present atmosphere, the inappropriate remark has only set tongues wagging.
Rajinikanth would hope that Kaala doesn't meet the fate of Baba, a black sheep in his career.