Kaala: Rajini’s patented hype missing

There is no excitement in the air. Though only a couple of days are left for Rajinikanth to storm theatres across the globe with ‘Kaala’, the hype that is quintessential to the superstar’s movie is conspicuously missing this time.

No special flight promoting the movie, set in the slums of Mumbai, no screaming from the rooftop by fans that they have grabbed a first day first show ticket and IT firms aren’t giving a day off for its Rajini fan-staff on Thursday.

While the social media was abuzz with messages on the superstar when Kabali released in 2016, the same cannot be said for Kaala since the latest movie is likely to give acclaimed filmmaker Pa Ranjith more credit than Rajinikanth.

Though many would connect the missing excitement with the latest political developments concerning Rajinikanth, industry sources attribute the reason to the Tamil film world just trying to be back on its feet after incurring several loses due to the month-long shut down of theatres due to differences between exhibitors and producers.

And surprisingly, tickets for the first day in several theatres outside Chennai were available on Monday evening — this was not the case earlier, especially with the superstar’s last movie Kabali. But, multiplexes and theatres in Chennai said they have been completely booked. “We haven’t yet opened direct booking. We have an option called pre-booking that allows customers to reserve their seats and the demand is quite good. We continue to get usual requests,” a member of the customer relations team at a multiplex in Chennai said.

Tirupur Subramanian, a leading film distributor, told DH that the hype could be missing outside Chennai since people fear that tickets in the first week would be very high.

“We have been told (by producer) that we need to sell tickets only at reasonable rates. Once this message reaches the public, may be we can see good bookings. The release on a week day could also be a dampener. We expect the bookings to pick pace over the week-end,” Subramanian said.