Did Rajinikanth's comments on anti-Sterlite protestors affect Kaala bookings?

A Rajinikanth movie release in Tamil Nadu is a festive event, often equated to Deepavali. And the question on almost every Tamilian's lips will be Rajini 'padam pathacha' (Have you seen Rajini movie)? But the frenzy is clearly absent before the release of his latest movie "Kaala" on Thursday.

Ironically, superstar Rajinikanth's Kaala is witnessing a less than enthusiastic response as far as advance booking of tickets for his movie is concerned. Though Kaala's opening day tickets are sold out in major multiplex and theatres in Chennai, the tickets are still available for weekend shows which is unusual for the superstar’s movie.

When Thalaivar’s last movie Kabali hit the screens in July 2016, the tickets were sold within hours for the first day and the weekend shows. Kabali went on to set new box-office records.

Moreover, Kaala, which is set in Mumbai’s Dharavi, is the first movie to be released after Rajinikanth announced his political plunge on December 31 last year. Both Kabali and Kaala are directed by Pa Ranjith.

Unlike Kabali, Kaala’s publicity was low key. “There are multiple factors that might have led to the lacklustre response for Kaala’s tickets booking. Lack of publicity for the movie. The decision to release the movie on June 7 which is Thursday after the schools and college reopened. Also the comments of Rajinikanth on Thoothukudi police firing incident. All these might have impacted the bookings,” said S Sridhar, joint secretary of Tamil Nadu Theatres Owners Association. He said that the movie would be releasing in over 500 screens across the state. The state has a total of 1180 screens.

Strangely, the Kaala’s movie tickets for the weekends remain unsold despite the prices being not hiked. A multiplex owner in Chennai said that they were keeping their bet on good word of mouth reviews on the movie to bring in the audiences for the shows. “Normally, the tickets for the Rajinikanth movies will be sold out from the opening day to the weekend. We don’t know why the sudden reverse in the trend?” he wondered.

Prof Bernard D’Sami, the Senior Fellow at the Loyola Institute of Social Science Training and Research, Chennai, attributed the poor response to the Kaala movie to the contradiction in the reel and the real-life image of Rajinikanth following his comments on the police firing on the anti-Sterlite protestors in Thoothukudi on May 22. He said that Rajinikanth has antagonised the people through his visit to Thoothukudi and the comments he made.

On May 30, Rajinikanth who visited Thoothukudi said that anti-socials intruded into the anti-Sterlite protests indulged in the violence and it led to the police firing. He also warned that the state would become a graveyard if the protest continued against every project. Moreover, Tamil news channels played the clipping of Kaala movie song “Poraduvom” whose lyrics exhorts people to join him to “fight for our children, for revolution” along with the actor’s comment on the protests in Tamil Nadu that would affect industrial climate.

Bernard D’Sami said that Rajinikanth’s comment on Thoothukudi firing incidents goes against what he says in the movie. “The reel life is different from the real life that people will never accept such contradictions...In the movie, if you projected yourself as a friend of the people than you have to be a friend of the people. You cannot go against it. Definitely, there is some truth in what Rajinikanth is saying but that is not expected from him,” the professor said, pointing out that MGR and others built their image in the movies in such a way that they were able to maintain in it in public life. So The people coming from the movie have to maintain that.