The arrival of films starring Rajnikanth and to a lesser extent those starring the other superstars of Tamil cinema are a matter of celebration for their huge fan base in Kerala, but not so for those in the industry.
But this time around, there were reasons to cheer for Mohanlal as he had bagged the distribution rights for Kabali for a whopping sum.
For the other Malayalam films and generally for the industry, the release of the movie was not great news though.
Carpet-bombed across 300 screens and running more than 2,000 shows a day, Kabali had virtually taken out all the Malayalam films running in theatres the previous week, including one starring a superstar.
Anticipating the movie’s arrival, the distributors of some films had planned ahead to push their releases by a few weeks, to not get lost in the deluge.
A week after the release though, the industry can heave a sigh of relief as Kabali has now been reduced to a couple of screens in most cities, with the fans having watched it on the first two days.
Now it’s time for the industry people to draw up schedules for the coming year to not clash with any of the Tamil superstars’ films.
(Reporting by S.R. Praveen)
