Showing posts with label endhiran box office. Show all posts
Showing posts with label endhiran box office. Show all posts
Endhiran/Robo/Robot's success has hushed up the furore over dubbed movies having a swell time in Hyderabad.
Man, machine, mohabbat… was a rather cheesy tagline for a film futuristically titled Robot and became the butt of sms jokes before Rajnikanth's costliest film till date hit theatres. The jokes and debates about why Southern stars don't stir the box office across India died a quiet death once Shankar's Robot/Robo/Endhiran arrived. Trade pundits who did the math trying to gauge if Shankar's expensive gamble would recover its cost, are now trying to fathom the record-shattering collections.
Cinema halls in Hyderabad have been juggling show timings to meet the demands for the screening of Tamil, Telugu and the Hindi versions. Brave the serpentine queues and reach the ticket counter to be faced with a standard question: “Tamil, Telugu or Hindi?” before you get the tickets. It's more likely that you see houseful boards though.
Film buffs in the city have had the advantage of watching original films releasing alongside their dubbed/remade counterparts for quite some time now. Gautham Menon's Ye Maya Chesave did roaring business even as the Tamil version Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaye sailed through in three multiplexes, drawing moderate to full houses for 2-3 shows a day. Karthi's Awara, helped by Yuvan Shankar Raja's lilting tunes, earned him recognition among Telugu film goers. The Tamil original Paiyya, which released simultaneously, saw Tamilians settled in the city queuing up. And Mani Ratnam's Raavan and Villain were cold turkeys, but that didn't stop film buffs from checking out the Tamil original Raavanan and drawing comparisons between the different versions.
Srikanth, general manager, Prasads multiplex, sees this as a reflection of Hyderabad's cosmopolitan culture: “There was a time when original Tamil, Kannada or Malayalam films would be screened in Hyderabad a good two to three months after their release in the neighbouring states. And those screenings were confined to morning shows. The increased response to native films has made it possible to screen more shows. Hyderabad is no more a vernacular city. It's only fair that people get to see a film in their language of preference,” he says.
On Wednesday, a day before the release of NTR's Brindaavanam, Robo was being screened for 10 shows in a leading multiplex with each one of them running to packed houses. Vasu of Multidimensional Pictures that distributed the movie feels Hyderabad is at a stage where it can leverage on its multi-lingual population. The furore raised by a section of the industry over dubbed films getting prominence is unwarranted, he says. “To the audience, all that matters is an entertaining film. We released the Telugu version in 205 theatres in the Nizam region and the collections have been 85 to 90 per cent even during weekdays. Tamil Nadu and Kerala do not have a problem with dubbed films and given Hyderabad's cosmopolitan society, it shouldn't be an issue here,” he asserts.
Trade analyst Komal Nahata affirms that Endhiran/Robot has broken language barriers elsewhere in the country too. “Endhiran alone has made business more than Rs. 100 crore, the magic mark that distributors earned through 3 Idiots. North Indians who don't take kindly to Rajnikanth and other South Indian stars have accepted the film, which in itself is a huge success,” he sums up.
At the movies
According to exhibitors in Hyderabad, tickets were sold out for Endhiran sooner than they did for Robo and Robot. The film has been running to packed houses in all three languages, leaving theatre owners perplexed as to how to make way for this week's releases — Brindaavanam, Aakrosh and Knock Out.
The growing number of shows and response to originals like Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya, Raavanan and Paiyya alongside the respective Telugu dubbed/remade versions Ye Maya Chesave, Villain and Awara are indicators to the city's cosmopolitan nature.
The distributors' share from Endhiran alone has surpassed the Rs. 100 crore, beating the previous record of 3 Idiots.
l Trade pundits note that Robot's acceptance in Mumbai, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan regions break the notion that Southern stars are paper tigers in Bollywood strongholds.
Background: The Indian film industry is again celebrating a runaway blockbuster - the expensive and ambitious Tamal movie Endhiran, directed by brilliant south-Indian filmmaker Shankar, and now the Hindi-dubbed version, Robot.
According to colleague Devan Nair, the success of Endhiran has been so astronomical that it has shattered records in the UK and US and is currently running to almost 60 shows a day at certain cinema complexes in India. This is magnificent news for a movie that has been in the news for many years and brings together two of the greatest talents India has ever witnessed. While superstar Rajnikanth can be described as an institution across the world, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan ranks as one of the greatest names associated with Indian cinema. Besides being in the making for almost a decade, the movie has also undergone some casting changes after Shahrukh Khan was once signed to play the lead role and produce it. However, Khan and Shankar had a fallout when the superstar claimed he was not impressed with the script. Incidentally, Shankar is the director that catapulted the former Miss World to stardom very early in her career with the highly acclaimed Jeans .
STORY:
The science-fiction action thriller revolves around scientist Dr Vaseegaran (Rajnikanth) who, after 10 years, completes his dream project of creating a robot modelled around human behaviour and emotions. Thus marks the arrival of Chitti (also played by Rajnikanth), the super-intelligent android robot who becomes part of the doctor's life. However, with the arrival of Dr Bora (Danny Dengonzpa), a wicked plan is hatch- ed and Chitti begins to develop some strong emotions for the beautiful Sana ( Bachchan).
DIRECTION:
Shankar has to be placed on a pedestal for making perhaps one of the most difficult and costly Indian movies ever. He takes a simple story of a robot, adds some glamour and packs a powerful punch with some great dialogue and witty humour. The special effects are world-class and can easily outshine the best of Hollywood. While the climax is breathtaking and fast-paced, the movie is let down by the unnecessary length and the continuous changes in Rajnikanth's appearance in his dual roles.
PERFORMANCES:
When you bring together two powerful performers, the results are nothing short of mind-blowing. While Robot is a Rajnikanth vehicle from start to finish, the actor wastes no opportunity to showcase how brilliant he is, as he takes on the dual role with ease. He takes you on a joyful ride and gives you a hangover with a performance that is simply superb. Leading lady Bachchan has not looked so gorgeous in a long time. Putting the debacle of Raavan behind her, Bachchan bounces back with a fine performance that cements her reputation as one of the best.
MUSIC:
Sadly, AR Rahman's music in the Hindi version does not have the appeal to become a success.
WHAT I LIKED:
The special effects and extra attention paid to ensure that every detail of the Robot is carefully incorporated in the story. The climax is also a fast roller-coaster journey that will leave you in awe.
OVERALL:
A movie like Robot defies the traditional norms that Indian cinema can dish out only song-and-dance routines. It's taken courage and determination to make a movie as spectacular as this, and one must salute the effort to show how talented Indian filmmakers have become. It's stylish, lavish and entertaining - don't miss it.
ROBOT (8/10)
By Shalandra Bunseellal
Times Live.
Emran Hashmi's Crook on the other hand has opened to a very poor response and can be termed a box office flop already. Weekend collections are under 8 crores gross.
As reported earlier, Sidhharth Anand's Anjaana Anjaani overseas caper has come out flat. The Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka chopra has flopped after doing about 48 crore gross for the week (Rs. 35 crores net), mostly from multiplexes. The film was poor all along in the single screens. Infact though both are poor, Robot (Hindi) is faring better than Anjaana Anjaani in 2nd weekend around the north. Ranbir Kapoor will have to settle with the 130 crore grosser Rajneeti being his biggest grosser this year.
Rajnikanth's Endhiran-The Robot grossed a 100 crore opening week in India from multiple versions, with half of it coming from one state: Tamil Nadu. The Tamil film has generated a gross of upto 50 crores from Tamil Nadu theaters (though some dispute this figure as occupancies in rural centers outside Chennai where ticket rates are as low as Rs. 10/ are not said to be same as Chennai), but another 26-28 crores gross can be safely said to have come from AP in the north; and another 8 crores from Karnataka/Kerala notwithstanding very limited print release in Karnataka as per local state chamber regulations of karnataka. For example, most of Karanatka's 13 prints of Enthiran are in Bangalore (10) where the movie tickets are at Rs. 450 in some theaters like Inox Malleshwaram. Occupancies there were 80-85% for the week. The hindi version Robot has been poor in rest of India with 18-20 crores gross but that's better than any other film to have come out of the south.
However Endhiran's first week gross is less than Dabangg's 120 crore opening week gross last month across India. Infact Dabangg in southern center of Bangalore was about 60% gross of Endhiran and pretty comptetitive with Endhiran in Andhra's biggest center Hyderabad also logging to the tune of 70%+ business of Endhiran down there; whereas the gap between Endhiran and Dabangg in the northern and central cities opening was much bigger. And being a Hindi film, Dabangg's collections were far more uniformly spread out through out the country. However Endhiran box office may be able to pass the salman Khan starrer in the long term since it's being viewed as an 'event' in Tamil cinema and its weekend 2 where its running well is tracing week 1 fairly well especially TN. Dabangg had only a Hindi version and that dropped by 50% in week 2. If Endhiran does remain steadier week after week then, Endhiran will likely emerge top grosser of India this year, unless some Hindi film releasing on Diwali (Action Replay, Golmaal) is able to put up bigger numbers. Raju Hirani's 3 Idiots currently holds the All India record of about Rs 300 crores gross, set about 10 months back.
But once again, segments in media are talking of net collections or shares of Enthiran and comparing it to bollywood hits without explaining the real dynamics of these type of figures. It's worth again pointing out comparing net collection of a tamil film from tamil nadu to net collection of a hindi film is a false comparision; as are some other points of relative ignorance out there about economy at large. For example UP state, which has a higher GDP than Tamil Nadu overall, has nonetheless historically imposed a very high entertainment tax on cinema of Hindi films compared to the reverse policy of zero amount that Tamil Nadu govt. imposes on Tamil films.
So a hindi film that reports Rs. 20 crore nett collection in UP has actually generated close to Rs. 35 crores GROSS in UP box office because of 60% entertainment tax imposed by UP which means the gross is almost 1.7 times the net collection reported from there; whereas due to 0% tax for Tamil films in Tamil Nadu, a film which claims the same Rs 20 crore nett from Tamil Nadu has only infact done only Rs. 20 crore gross business also. Gross is the figure that's actually being generated from ticket sales not nett. Gross minus Entertainment tax of a given state = nett. So the nett *is* the gross for Tamil films in TN whereas this works out quite different for Bollywood films in much of the Indian North and beyond (ex. Maharashtra).
In general in terms of reach, the collection of a top Bollywood grosser in south is going to be a lot closer to Endhiran than Endhiran's collection in north are going to be closer to a 3I or Dabangg in Delhi or Punjab for example. Though to be fair, Rajnikanth is an exception from south in that he is somewhat more popular in UP-Bihar going back to his appearance in Hindi movies like Uttar Dakshin, Geraftar and Hum and Robot (Hindi) has not done too badly there.
And regardless of lack of complete verifiability of actual collections, success of Endhiran is a major achievement for Rajnikanth. His onetime correlate in Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan, has largely reduced himself to character actor theme. Others like Dilip Kumar never gave a solo hit past age 48. Dharmendra's last hit was at age 54, nevermind bonafide blockbuster anywhere.
Moving ahead, there are no major releases till Akshay Kumar's Action Replay and Ajay Devgan starrer Golmaal 3 which hit on Diwali week, often a big one at the box office.
Speaking of USA, what has come as the bigger surprise is the film Endhiran/Robot may have set a new record for Indian films in USA box office by taking in over $2 million for a 3 day weekend. That beats even the US opening weekend mark set by Shahrukh Khan's My Name is Khan, which failed to impress much in India, but took a big number in USA atleast at around $1.9 million for a 3 day weekend opening. But Endhiran has taken a bigger opening with its core audience in India and beaten the likes of Shah Rukh Khan starrer MNIK overseas in US also. The irony is Shahrukh Khan was also in consideration for Robot before Rajnikanth decided to make it. If the film can sustain, it may even catch 3I's mark of $6.5 million in US.
Nonetheless now the question will be how long does Endhiran show legs and how long before a Bollywood film takes back the opening bonanza marks. As mentioned earlier, a very large percentage of Tamil Nadu, and to a lesser extent Andhra Pradesh expatriates have shown up for Rajnikanth's Endhiran. If a similar percentage of Hindi states citizenry showed up en masse behind a Hindi movie, the opening generated would be much much bigger than Endhiran. But this kind of intensity in middle India can not be generated by a Karan Johar type overseas pseudo-pop cinema like Anjaana Anjaani or on the other extreme, a Raavan (Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai) type cultural inversion.
As for Ranbir Kapoor's Anjaana Anjani the film had a decent opening on Friday but the overseas set love story with Priyanka Chopra was losing steam by Sunday. It looks to have had about a 38-40 crore gross weekend.
The most expensive film ever made in India has been released.
Tamil star Rajinikanth's latest film Endhiran (The Robot) has been made with a budget of 1.6bn rupees ($35m; £23m), according to the film's makers.
Fans queued for tickets overnight in the southern city of Madras (Chennai) ahead of Friday's release. Analysts expect box-office records to be broken.
The 60-year-old actor has a huge fan following. Opposite him in the film is Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai.
A science-fiction fantasy thriller, Endhiran is being screened in nearly 2,000 cinemas worldwide. The film has also been released in Hindi and Telugu.
Rajinikanth's fans celebrated the release by lighting firecrackers and beating drums. In Madras, his larger than life-size posters were washed with gallons of milk, a sign of purity.
Huge expectations were generated for the film over the past few years - its makers claimed that its technical effects would challenge Hollywood films like Terminator and Godzilla.
Those who have seen the film say its technology and graphics are far superior to other Indian films.
Rajinikanth has made more than 100 films and is Tamil cinema's biggest superstar. His movies are a hit not just in India but in other parts of the world which have large Tamil populations.
His films are generally a colourful spectacle with song-and-dance routines and death-defying stunts.
Critics, however, say the actor is a bad role model - in some of his past movies he was shown stylishly lighting cigarettes and activists say this promotes smoking among his fans, who include many children.
A former bus conductor, Rajinikanth started his film career as a villain. Today, at 60 he is called the "ageless superstar" and has a cult-like following.
His critics say it could be time for him to retire. The Robot visibly shows his age in spite of heavy make-up.
But, going by the reaction of his fans, it seems Rajinikanth has nothing to fear.
The year’s biggest box-office event, Endhiran’s first day, first show, kept its date. On Friday, the big-budget, multi-lingual Rajinikanth starrer, with an ‘official’ budget of Rs 162 crore and ‘unofficial’ budget based on market rumour of Rs 250-300 crore, opened to packed houses, with tickets sold out days in advance.
Industry sources told Business Standard they expect Endhiran to rake in around Rs 400-450 crore in the first month. The movie was released by Sun Pictures, part of media mogul Kalanidhi Maran’s Sun Network, and Ficus Entertainment in 2,250 screens worldwide. This includes 500 screens in Tamil Nadu, 350 in Andhra Pradesh and 700 in north India.
The movie was released in three languages simultaneously. While in Tamil, it was titled Endhiran, in Telegu and Hindi it is Robot. For the first time, a movie from India will be dubbed in Japanese.
Film industry sources say each of the cinema halls worldwide screening the movie will have an average capacity of around 400 seats, totalling an audience of around 900,000 people per screen every day. Some multiplexes are screening up to 45 shows a day.
In Endhiran, Rajinikanth plays a double role: that of a robot and a scientist. Scientist Rajini develops a robot with artificial intelligence for the development of the country. It behaves like a human being, writes romantic poems and falls in love with Aishwarya Rai. The villain tries to capture the robot and gain control of it due to its extraordinary intelligence. The robot is saved from falling into the hands of the evil forces with the help of scientist Rajini.
Rajinikanth was born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad. Starting life as a conductor in the early 1970s, he drove the then Bangalore Transport Service’s route 10A. Raja Bahadur, now a retired bus driver, was Rajinikanth’s close friend and was instrumental in his entering the movie industry.
| BOX OFFICE NUMBERS | ||
| Theatre name (Chennai) | No. of shows | Ticket price (base, in RS) |
| Mayajaal | 45 | 140 |
| AGS | 35 | 120 |
| PVR | 26 | 120 |
| Escape | 20 | 120 |
| Satyam Cinemas | 18 | 120 |
| Abirami complex | 16 | 100 & 120 |
| Inox | 14 | 120 |
| Devi Complex | 8 | 10-85 |
"If it was not for his unstinting encouragement and support," Rajinikanth was quoted as saying, "Shivaji Rao would have been a retired conductor living a small home in Hanumanathanagar in south Bangalore instead of becoming Rajinikanth.”
Rajinikanth made his debut 35-years ago with an inconsequential role in Tamil film Apoorva Raagangal (1975), directed by Kailasam Balachander. A vast majority of Rajinikanth’s successful movies were released in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and include Thalapathy, Mannan, Annamalai, Uzhaippali, Veera, Badsha, Muthu, Arunachalam and Padayappa. After a setback in 2002 with the movie Baba, Chandramukhi was Rajinikanth's comeback film when it was released in April 2005.
In Endhiran, Rajinikanth worked a magical combination of beauty (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), and brains (hi-tech and financial) to create what industry experts describe as “the best alliance in the history of the movie industry”. Agrees the 60-year old superstar: "There are four important pillars to Endhiran: director Shankar, producer Kalanidhi Maran, actor Aishwarya Bachchan and A R Rahman.”
Rajinikanth is proud that this film is not only about big bucks, but also about high tech. "This is the first scientific movie made with Hollywood standards in India. First of its kind." he claims.
Some of the foreign experts that have worked in the movie include costume designer Mary E Vogt, who has worked for the Men in Black series, and stunt coordinator Yuen Woo Ping, who was action choreographer for The Matrix.
Endhiran is based on two novels by late Sujatha, a renowned tech-savvy writer. The movie has 1,500 graphical shots – a record for Indian cinema. It is estimated that around 40 per cent of the cost was incurred on the special effects.
| MIND IT # Biggest budget for any movie in Indian film industry # To be shown on 2,250 screens worldwide, including in China # First Tamil film album in iTunes World Album Top 10 # First Indian sci-fi movie with 1,500 graphical shots |
Rajini's films have released in Japan for nearly 15 years now, with the launch of Muthu – The Dancing Maharaja and recently his movies were screened in the US. Sivaji, which first saw the Rajini-Sankar combo, debuted in the UK top 10 at the box-office.
“We are hearing that China and Africa are on the list of possible release destinations for Endhiran, which is unheard of for Tamil cinema,” said a source involved in the marketing activities. The movie will also be released in traditional global markets like the US, UK, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.
Sun Pictures has launched its promotional activities in full steam. According to the company's Hansraj Saxena, Rs 30 crore has been earmarked for promotional and marketing activities. According to him, this film will have Asia's biggest budget so far.
