Even a Rajini flop needs a Rajini ending. So, beginning January 27, distributors from at least seven industry zones of Tamil Nadu are starting an indefinite hunger strike demanding that producers compensate them for losses suffered over Rajinikanth’s Lingaa — an amount to the tune of Rs 40 crore. A suicide attempt has been reported already.
Reportedly produced at a budget under Rs 90 crore, including ‘a single payment cheque of Rs 40 crore’ to the superstar, Lingaa is estimated to have made Rs 220 crore at the box-office since its release on December 12, Rajinikanth’s birthday. That would normally qualify as a hit. But normally isn’t the word normally associated with Rajinikanth. What has the distributors and theatre owners in a soup is the advance demanded from them for rights to show the film. Distributors paid up to Rs 8 crore each.
“There are theatre owners who invested up to Rs 60 lakh and lost more than 60 per cent of their cash,” said a distributor. On an average, says one estimate, distributors and theatre owners made only 30 per cent of what they invested.
Following a demonstration by them on January 10, Lingaa producers promised to settle the issue “amicably”. “But over 10 days have passed. We are all in distress. There was a call yesterday from a southern district that a theatre owner had attempted suicide,” says Krishnakumar, a distributor for Capricorn Pictures.
They had been told that ‘Lingaa’ would be bigger and better than Enthiran, Rajinikanth’s 2010 movie, says R Singaravelan, owner of distributor Marina Pictures. “But we were cheated. Lingaa is a low-quality film that cannot be compared to Enthiran or any recent release, such as Vikram-starrer I,” Singaravelan says. Marina Pictures distributes movies to theatres in Tiruchi-Tanjavur districts, one of the nine zones in Tamil Nadu.
A self-confessed Rajinikanth fan, Singaravelan grumbles that Lingaa was made in a rush, without investing much money or time. Commissioned last June after the failure of Rajinikanth-starrer ‘Kochadiiyaan’, ‘Lingaa’ was ready for release in less than six months. Sold by producer Rockline Venkatesh to Eros International based in Mumbai, Lingaa was resold to Vendhar Movies for distribution in Tamil Nadu.
Industry sources put Lingaa collections from Tamil Nadu in the first four weeks as the same as collected by ‘I’, a science fiction fantasy thriller by director Shankar, in just three days. These days films are made and unmade in the first five days, said a distributor.
Singaravelan says that’s true in his case. He says he paid Rs 8 crore for the theatrical rights of Lingaa (Rs 1.25 crore from his pocket and Rs 6.75 crore collected from theatre owners). “But Lingaa has collected only Rs 2.85 crore so far while I has earned
that much in just three days. Now that new movies have come, Lingaa is almost withdrawn from many theatres,” he says. Theodore Baskaran, a film historian, says this has been the trend in the Tamil film industry for decades. “This is terrible, worse than gambling. This hype built around a person’s stardom with claims of huge sums much before the release actually kills good films and filmmakers,” he says. A leading distributor in Chennai said Rajinikanth had lost his market value at least 12 years ago, beginning with Baba (2002).
A distributor who had bought Sivaji, a 2007 release, for Rs 6 crore said he refused to buy Endhiran (2010) for Rs 7 crore as Sivaji was a failure. “And now Lingaa was sold for Rs 8 crore despite the fact that it is nowhere near even a movie like Enthiran in terms of budget or effort invested,” he says. Sources close to Rajinikanth said he need not to take any responsibility as he was just an actor in the film, and that his agreement had no provision for compensation or refund. “All these protests are part of a conspiracy to prevent Rajinikanth’s entry into politics,” a person close to the Lingaa producer said. Others believe Rajini will save the day — again.
When he had failed to repeat the success of his Arunachalam (1997) and Padayappa (1999) with Baba, Rajinikanth, who used to produce his movies earlier, had settled the losses of distributors and handed over production to others. His next movie, Chandramukhi (2005), was produced by Sivaji Productions. When Sivaji in 2007 also resulted in losses, Sun Pictures stepped in to release Endhiran. Says a hopeful producer-cum-distributor, “Rajini sir had himself compensated distributors after his Baba and Kuselan failed. There are instances of Vijay doing the same after the poor performance of Thalaiva and Jilla. Actor Ajith even makes sure he does one more movie if the producer is affected.”
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