Actor-film-maker Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam will arrive at the crack of dawn in some theatres across the State on Thursday, riding heavily on the controversy surrounding it over the past two weeks.
It is also aiming at reaching almost the entire cinema-going audience in the State, before the week ends.
Though the iconic actor has been a veteran of many hits in his career spanning over five decades, the hype surrounding Vishwaroopam is unprecedented, according to some theatre owners.
“Over the past few years, the stars with the biggest openings have been Rajinikanth and Ajith Kumar,” a prominent theatre owner, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, said.
“Kamal Haasan’s movies usually have reasonably good openings but have a prolonged run at theatres, filling in 60 to 70 per cent occupancy for a few weeks. In our parlance, we call this ‘class’ audience. The ‘mass’ openings are where the crowds flock the theatres for the opening weekend. In Vishwaroopam ’s case, it seems to be aiming for a ‘mass’ opening.”
In its first attempt to release, Vishwaroopam was slated to be screened in 524 theatres across the State. But the controversy is likely to help it release in over 600 State-wide theatres.
“Some theatre complexes are allotting literally all their screens to it. Even by conservative estimates, Vishwaroopam is aiming to reach out to anywhere between 40 and 50 lakh cinema-goers by Monday. You can safely say that is the actual number of cinema-goers in the State,” he added.
There seems to be a virtual competition among theatres in the B and the C centres across the State, on who releases the movie ahead of the other.
Such euphoria was last seen with Rajinikanth-starrer Enthiran .
Though the legal requirements of running such early morning shows are not very clear, it seems to have become a tradition in the State where cinema has always held centrestage.
