Kabali box office collections : Rajinikanth has
pulled of a miracle of sorts. The southern
superstar has created a gigantic hit film that
has demolished all previous records and ruined
reputations of many megastars to reach the No.
1 spot in India. Here is how it all happened,
blow-by-blow: as expected, in Rajinikanth’s
Kabali movie way were the familiar foes
(professionally speaking) that included Aamir
Khan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and to an
extent Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar. All of
them over the years had smashed records
aplenty and cornered glory for themselves with
their standout movies. Now, with Rajinikanth’s
Kabali, they themselves were caught by the
whirlwind he created and tossed aside.
Nothing has been able to withstand the
onslaught of Kabali. In fact, the over-the-top
superman-type of stunts that Rajinikanth pulls
off with so much ease on screen, is singularly
reminiscent of what Kabali movie has done vis a
vis the competition. In short, Rajinikanth has
fought the big fight against the best of the
Bollywood supertsars and come out on top. The
list starts with Aamir Khan and ends with
Rajinikanth re-establishing himself as the pre-
eminent force in Indian cinema.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan was ruling the
roost with PK, which had box office collections
of Rs 625.65 cr (lifetime). Few, if anyone, could
even have imagined any one could beat this
record. However, the industry analysts did not
factor in the potential of dark horse Rajinikanth
and his latest release Kabali even though it was
pretty much evident that something special was
going on when AirAsia unveiled its jetplane all
liveried up in Kabali colours! Now, with earnings
figures like this, who could ever stand in the
way: Rs 200 cr from marketing push, Rs 211
crore from the Indian collections and another
Rs 259 cr from the international market. What
this all adds up to is the new No. 1 in India!
While all his fans may think Rajinikanth can do
miracles, this present feat will really convince a
lot of others that he actually did! However,
everyone should remember that the folks at
Bollywood are nothing if not smart and they will
be plotting to get back the title from southern
superhero Rajinikanth. The challenge may
appear as early as August when Mohenjo Daro
starring Hrithik Roshan and Rustom starring
Akshay Kumar are launched. But fortunately for
Kabali, both these Bollywood movies are
releasing on the same day and would therefore
hurt each others collections, all things being
equal. You never know when and if a
controversy about a movie is going to hit the
public and it suddenly finds itself at the centre
of all attention and this boosts the box office
collections immensely.
While PK was the unseated champion, the then
No 2 position was that of Salman Khan’s Sultan.
The movie had just beaten Dhoom 3 (also
starring Aamir Khan) and became number 2 and
all of a sudden Kabali rushed to the top
position, pushing Sultan to No 3 with overall
collections of Rs 568.76 crore.
Salman Khan was again the injured party as his
other superhit film, Bajrangi Bhaijaan got
demoted. It had a collection of Rs 486.95 cr
overall from all sources and it too fell by one
position. It would be pertinent here to point out
that while in India the collections figures of the
Bollywood biggies is huge, Rajinikanth managed
to overtake them as his sensational foreign
collections went through the roof. Fortunately
for Rajinikanth, even if one of the Bollywood
films manages to beat his top collections figure,
he has a chance to get back on top with
Enthiran 2.0. It is always good to hedge one’s
bet and that is what this new Rajinikanth movie
will be all about.
