Rajini rocks!
Fans pour milk on a huge poster of their superstar Rajinikanth outside a cinema in Chennai. AP
• ‘Jailer’ crosses Rs100-crore mark in just two days
• Offices in Bengaluru and Chennai give staff the day off to watch the megastar’s new film ‘Jailer’
• California-headquartered firm buys over 2,000 tickets for employees
• Mumbai theatre ‘pauses’ film as frenzied fans go wild inside the cinema when actor makes his maiden entry in the film
Millions of fans of Rajinikanth, one of India’s biggest movie superstars, thronged movie theatres and celebrated with dancing and prayers as his latest film ‘Jailer’ hit screens on Thursday. The movie is doing miracles at the box office: while early estimates had shown that the film would gross over Rs25 crore, the movie has surpassed that figure massively earning over Rs100 crore in just two days, and is expected to gross over Rs500 crore with the potential to earn more.
Hundreds of avid supporters of the actor carried photo cutouts and flower garlands as they made their way to a theatre in Mumbai to watch his latest film "Jailer.”
Fans welcomed the movie 'Jailer' by throwing rose petals and jasmines to the screen in most of the theatres in Tamil Nadu including Chennai, Theni, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Salem, Erode and all other major spots of the state.
Some offices in the southern cities of Chennai and Bengaluru declared Thursday a holiday so his fans could watch the movie.
In Bengaluru, the movie shows began at 6am and the fans were found waiting and celebrating outside the theatres from midnight. All the shows are going house full in single screens and bookings are seeing upward trends for the weekend shows in multiplexes as well. Rajinikanth hails from the city.
Popular movie stars are treated like gods in India, often worshipped like deities by their fans.
R. Pradeep Kumar, a software engineer from Kerala settled in Chennai, said: "Rajini is marvellous and so is Mohanlal, the Malayalam superstar who is playing a cameo in the movie. Can't describe about the making of the movie and Nelson has proved once again that he is an indispensable presence in the Tamil film world."
Chennai-born global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Freshworks has booked 2,200 tickets (only for its employees) for the movie. The firm is headquartered in California.
Such is the adulation that when he made his maiden entry in the film in the Sion theatre in Mumbai, his fans broke into a loud applause, cheering and hooting for the actor. The cinema authorities then paused the movie for a few moments.
A video was captured on X, formerly called Twitter, by a fan who was present at the cinema and displayed a short clip of how the movie was suddenly paused in the hall as everyone suddenly stood up and started cheering out loud and clapping.
"Scientists say that time machines are not possible, but Rajinikanth has the power to take us back to childhood,” said one fan named Arun, who watched the movie on opening day in Mumbai.
Just the stylish entry of the 72-year-old on screen caused the theatre in a big screen in Sion, Mumbai to pause.
This marks actually a rare occurrence because while in Tamil speaking areas of India, particularly Chennai or Madurai this is a known phenomenon, Rajinikanth though loved across all of India, and is considered the master of swag has never received this level of appreciation.
South Indian cinema has gained a lot of traction in the Hindi belt in recent years, though this level of applause in a theatre in Mumbai was a genuine surprise. In addition, due to the film also having other big stars like Jackie Shroff, Mohanlal, Ramya Krishnan and Tamannah Bhatia, 'Jailer' exploded even further.
Born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, the actor today uses only one name. He once worked as a bus conductor for three years before attending acting school. He started in small roles as villains in Tamil cinema and worked his way up, before landing roles in Bollywood, the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai.
Rajinikanth is one of Asia’s highest-paid actors, known for his superhero stunts. He enjoys a devoted fan base that cuts across generations and even continents. His films have broken box-office records in India and in countries like Malaysia and the United Kingdom, both of which have large Tamil-speaking populations.
In "Jailer,” Rajinikanth plays a prison warden who learns that a criminal gang is trying to rescue its leader from the prison, and he sets out to stop them.
Rajinikanth, 72, has acted in more than 160 movies spanning more than five decades in several Indian languages, including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Malayalam.
Agencies
