Don Kabali comes to Tamil Nadu screens today

Chennai: Rajini fans see only the positives as Kabali began appearing in theatres in India from as early as 1 am Friday morning after its premiere in various countries around the globe in the west and East. Too busy celebrating the First Day, First Show phenomenon, they have had no time to reflect on why so many were given the opportunity to see the film before the Superstar’s diehard fans of Chennai and Tamil Nadu.

The quirks of releasing abroad first may have been a spoiler of sorts as the opening scene was leaked on WhatsApp. It is reported that a two-minute sequence with English and Arabic subtitles shows Rajinikanth coming out of jail. Needless to say, the leak went viral even as dark rumours floated about the movie being available on the dark web already. The producers seemed to suggest that these were all just rumours and that the film had succeeded in blocking most pirate sites.  There were the usual complaints of exorbitant ticket pricing to cash in on the phenomenon of the release as well as to pick up as much as possible from box office takings in the first week, which is what the saturated release is aimed to do these days. Some fans in the Nilgiris were complaining that the two Ooty theatres are not exhibiting the film and so they were taking off to Coimbatore, Salem or Erode to enjoy their date with FDFS.

There were no legal tangles on the eve of release with the Madras High Court dismissing the claims of the producers of the flop Lingaa, who tried to block don Kabali from releasing very early on Friday morning. Justice M.M. Sundresh dismissed the petition challenging the release on the count of certain compensation for Lingaa losses not reaching some distributors. It does appear Kabali is in a different financial league, with reports positively sanguine about its chances of box office success.

There was a clamour for tickets, of course, as well as rumours about why the Superstar was watching the US premiere rather than coming back to India before the Friday release as scheduled.  Fans were queuing up fairly early in some Chennai theatres as our photographers went around the city capturing the scenes of the most anticipated movie release of recent times.