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19 March 2024

Rajinikanth, the Boss: Leaves Salman, Shah Rukh, Aamir behind

'Kabali', directed by Pa Ranjith, also stars Radhika Apte, Dhanshika and Kalaiarasan in pivotal roles. The movie has been produced by Kalaipuli S Thanu. (Supplied)

Published
By Ajanta Paul

Going by the social media buzz and news coverage, it seems only one movie released last this weekend 'Kabali'. Many didn't even know Irrfan's 'Madaari' was opening at the theatres.

In the international front 'Star Trek Beyond' is dominating at the US box office as the latest entry in the durable franchise heads to a solid $60 million opening weekend, estimates showed Saturday.

Like most of Rajinikanth's movies, 'Kabali' saw hype to the power of X. Except that this one was even more unprecedented, something that defied logic.

Toppling the three Khans (Salman, Shah Rukh, Aamir) of Bollywood, Rajinikanth emerged as the winner on Saturday when the makers of 'Kabali' announced that the film had made an opening collection of Rs 250 crore in the domestic market alone.

With figures like that, 'Kabali' is now the all-time biggest opener in India. This, despite the superstar not making any effort to promote his film unlike the Bollywood actors.

Shah Rukh Khan-starrer 'Happy New Year' (2014) lags behind by a huge margin with Rs 44.97 crore as its opening collection. Salman Khan's 'Prem Ratan Dhan Payo' (2015) is a distant third with Rs 40.35 crore in its kitty on day one of the release.

The Salman Khan-Anushka Sharma-starrer 'Sultan' made an opening collection of Rs 36.54 crore which made it the biggest opener of 2016 and the fourth biggest on the list of all-time top openers.

Aamir Khan's Dhoom 3 (2013) is close behind with Rs 36.22 crore followed by 'Chennai Express' (2013) with Rs 33.12 crore, occupying the fifth and sixth slots respectively.

Salman's 'Ek Tha Tiger' (2012) earned Rs 32.93 crore making it the seventh in the pecking order while his 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' (2015) earned Rs 27.25 crore.

'Kabali's' success can be attributed to the fact that it was released in Tamil as well as in Telugu and Hindi in their dubbed versions. Also, 'Kabali' released in approximately 8000-10000 screens all over the world, which includes 480 screens in the US, 490 in Malaysia and above 500 in Gulf countries.

The fact that the 65-year-old actor does a movie only once every two years does little to satiate his followers.