The much anticipated Rajinikanth-starrer and multi-lingual feature film ‘ Kochadaiiyaan ’ finally hit the screens across the country today after protracted delays due to financial and technical reasons.
The movie using motion capture technology, a novel attempt in the Indian film industry, was originally scheduled for release early in 2013.
“We see an excellent response from his fans, and almost all the major cinemas across Tamil Nadu are booked for the first three days,” according to Abirami Ramanathan, distributor of the film (for Chennai) and cinema complex owner.
"However, we will know the exact trend only by tomorrow, as online bookings usually happen on the night of the launch date - which will be the true gauge for us," he added.
Cities in down South such as Madurai and Tiruchi too report good response for the film.
Rajinikanth's earlier film Enthiraan which came out four years ago in 2010, was launched in 2,250 screens and raked in over ₹ 300 crore. The ₹ 150-crore Kochadaiiyaan is being launched in a record 4,000 screens (450 in Tamil Nadu, 300 in Karnataka and Kerala, 700 in Andhra Pradesh and around 2000 screens across the North) and 700 screens in the US and Europe. The industry sources say the overall business of the movie may far exceed that of Enthiran .
‘ Kochadaiiyaan ’ is a joint venture project between Eros International and Media One Global Ltd. According to J. Murali Manohar, Director, Media One Global, in the US the movie is well received. “I am told that after Godzilla, Kochadaiiyaan has been reporting high numbers in terms of advance bookings. And, we expect the film to set a new benchmark in the domestic market as well," he said.
Some of Rajinikanth’s die-hard fans were a bit reluctant to book their tickets in advance, as they wanted to see superstar in the flesh and not a motion-captured image. But, the movie is technically remarkable. For the first few minutes one may find it odd to see Rajinikanth’s image in motion capture form. But after that, the audience will for sure forget the fact that it is not a flesh-and-blood image of his favourite star, said one of his first-day-first-show fans.
Earlier the movie hit a few financial hurdles. Murali says all of them have been sorted out. Usually any medium-budget movie will have a debt-equity ratio of 1:1. For Kochadaiiyaan , the debt is only 25 per cent. “Only since the budget is big, the debt portion looked big in absolute terms, and was blown out of proportion by the media,” he said.