Is Rajinikanth reason for loose narrative and unnecessary cameos in Coolie ? Lokesh Kanagaraj insistence that A censor tag will not harm the collections put Sun Pictures in position where it is facing revenue loss as family crowds are not coming in second week . Kannada , Telugu viewers are angry that Upendra and Nagarjuna are omitted in posters after first release. All this has resulted in Coolie beating Vikram as top grosser but will occupy a place below Leo in Kollywood openers list. So far Sun Pictures has made only 70- 80 % recovery of the Rs 350 crore budget and seeing the drop, second week is crucial as it has to add 20% more to at least reach a break even. The mixed opinion are a result of Rajinikanth’s interference and Lokesh over confidence.
The talk from Coolie crew is that Upendra – Shoubin characters
along with Aamir were all Rajinikanth idea to provide back up to film box
office. Shoubin role was extended to a point that it diluted Nagarjuna’s role
and Upendra and Aamir were sheer waste
and added nothing to the narration. Rajinikanth probably after Jailer thought
that Mohanlal- Sivarajkumar- Jackie cameos had helped the film at box office.
Placement of these cameos and that it was Director Nelson’s idea had worked
while in Coolie it was not Lokesh idea. Another reason said is that the surgery
that took place while Coolie was shooting had led to Lokesh to place less
burden on Rajinikanth and only way to bring in cameo actors.
Irony is that when Lokesh directed Vikram, many
thought that it would a Kamal Haasan
proxy directed film . It was not so and Lokesh had his way through. It made
Vikram the 6th top Kollywood opener.
Sun Pictures
and the team received slight backlash for the way they promoted the movie. Many
noticed and pointed out that the makers had used posters featuring all the
stars before release. However, the post-release posters shared online featured
only Rajinikanth, excluding others.
It seems
like the makers took the criticism seriously, and today, they released a poster
featuring Kannada star Upendra alongside Rajinikanth. Fans are happy and are
asking the team to continue doing so.
Lokesh in interview said that he was not going to
compromise on violence and so he refused cuts and accepted A as he overlooked
the opinion that it could affect audience coming with kids as Lokesh felt that
youth who are mainstay of viewing crowd would compensate for the family crowd.
Now the violence in film has not satisfied the youth and bad mouth publicity
had affected it badly. To break even it needs the family crowd in second week
and so the rush to High court for U/A. Sun wants A certificate to toned down to
U/A without any cuts. The case will come only next week and after weekend. By then
the buzz would have faded out and everybody would have moved to Sivakarthikeyan
and Madharasi.
