Rajnikanth ratings take a beating

With his latest release ‘Lal Salaam’ failing to make any noise in the two Telugu states, it looks like Rajinikanth market crashed in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. “The film didn’t register even bare minimum openings and all the usual hype around Rajinkanth movies was missing for this film,” says a distributor and adds, “It was released on sharing basis but the collections in two Telugu state hasn’t even touch Rs 1 crore till date, which is quite unfortunate and baffling for actor of Rajnikanth stature,” he adds.

The distributors blamed the makers for projecting it as a Rajnikanth film rather than a sports-drama revolving around two religions. ‘Rajnikanth didn’t even promote the film in two Telugu states. Probably, he knew that it would not help the film as he was just doing a special appearance for his daughter and director Aishwarya and it turned out to be true,” he points out.

Actually, Tamil superstar Rajinikanth bounced back with the blockbuster ‘Jailer’ in two Telugu states. “Jailer garnered more than Rs 30 crores net collections in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and he regained his market and fan following among Telugu,” he adds,

Vishal and Vikranth play local cricket rivals in Lal Salaam and it exposes politics spoiling the 'gentleman's game. "Rajnikantth should avoid doing such experiments since his films are known to be larger than life and one man shows stories, otherwise the audience will be disappointed,” he concludes.