A Successful Entertainer.

On 23rd July Chandramukhi will complete 100 days which is a rare thing in the current cinema trend. Reasons for the current trend are pirated CDs, Mega Serials, Cost of tickets, maintenance of cinema theatres, numerous recreation that has mush-roomed in the city. But most of his movies are beyond all those things. His movie is like a theme park. Whenever his movie is released, it becomes one of the options for the family as a weekend recreation. His idea is to entertain people without vulgarity and that is why he has wide range of audiences.

Chandramukhi's achievement :

1. First movie to complete 100 days in Mayajaal.
2. Doing a business of 100 crores.
3. First movie to be dubbed in Zulu (Lance Klusener's mother tongue) and Afrikaans (South Africa's main language)
4. Doing very well in Kerala, a place from where Chandrmukhi's knot is taken from the movie Manichitrathazhu, and dislodged Mohanlal's latest movie.
5. Doing very well in Andra and going to complete 100 days in 10 theaters. Many big Telugu movies including Chiru's movie was released along with Chandramukhi. But all bite the dust except Chandramukhi.
6. Generally in US, Indian movies will be screened for 2 weeks that too only one show during weekdays and 4 shows during weekends. But CM was screened for 5 weeks with 5 shows a day.
7. Rajni's salary for this movie is 20 crores and thus making him as the highest paid actor in India again.
8. Abirami theater alone will get 1 crore.
9. Vetri theatre in Chrompet, a suburb of Chennai which is said to have paid Rs 20 Lakhs MG, and according to trade sources the theatre recovered the amount in five days and thereby created a new record. The rumor mill has it that Vetri theatre had collected Rs 7, 62,000 gross on the first day making it “unofficially” the highest collection from a single screen for a day in India! Remember, this can happen only with a Rajnikanth film! He is the only superstar after the late MGR who can entice an ordinary movie going public to part with their hard earned money for three hours of pure fantasy.
10. After Baba debacle, he silenced all his detractors inside and outside film industry through CM.
11. Surely Industry will have lucrative year just because of CM as there is no big budget movie in the next 7 months (There is no chance of any big debacle this year). This happened 7 years before on 1998 when 'Padayappa' was release. That is why Tamil Film Industry is considered as one man industry.
12. Generally Shahrukh Khan (considered as the most popular Indian actor) movies has done a business of 52 crores with 20 crores as cost of production (Kal Ho Na Ho and Main Hoon Na). CM, being a regional movie is doing a business of 100 crores with 5 crores + Rajni's salary as cost of production.
13. Overseas rights will be sold for 5 crores for SRK's movie while for Rajni it went up to 22 crores.
14. But the biggest achievement of CM is bringing family audiences, female audience who were glued to their TV sets watching 'Metti Oli' and children to the theaters.

Superstar and Japan

Read the following article.

http://www.ndtv.com/ent/newstory.asp?section=Movies&slug=Rajnikanth+mania+grips+Japan&id=3544

Quote:

It was the release of Rajnikanth's film Muthu, dubbed in Japanese as Dancing Maharaja, that really took the country by a storm. Since its release in 1997, fan clubs mushroomed across Japan and Rajni mania went through the roof.

Quote:

Such is the influence of the superstar that Japanese universities have witnessed a spurt in the intake of students for Tamil language courses

It is a good answer to those politicians who tag themselves as people for protecting tamil language. This is a better way of spreading our language's popularity instead of indulging in Road Roko and other useless things.

Rajni Trivia

This trivia is related only to 'Padma Bhushan' Rajinikanth who turns 58 today.

Rajni and Numbers:

1. In the film Thee, SS wore a metal plate which had the number 786. What was the number he wore in Uzhaipaali?
2. Whats the connection between the number 4995 and SS (Clue: related to a movie released in mid 90s)
3, Whats the connection between the number 7465 and SS (Clue: related to a movie released in early 80s. Latha Rajnikanth will not forget this movie)

Rajni and Character Names

4. What is Rajini's father's name in in the movie 'Velaikarran'?
5. In two movies, Rajni's character name is his original name ie.. 'Rajini'. What are those movies?
6. What is Rajni's character name in the movie Sri Ragavendra before He (Sri Ragavendra) adopted an extreme ascetic life?

Rajni and Colleagues

7. Which actress has paired with SS most number of times?
8. In how many movies did Rajni and Sivaji had acted together?

Rajni and Kamal

9. Which actress has shared the screen with Rajni as heroin has never shared the screen with Kamal as heroin or as character artist (no dubbing movies)
10. Which actress has shared the screen with Kamal as heroin has never shared the screen with Rajni as heroin or as character artist (no dubbing movies)

Special thanks to Yahoo Rajni groups for lending me some interesting questions.

Rajinikanth - A Small Profile about Superstar

Swara Bedam. That is how all it started. Really an inauspicious way to start.

Rajni's career can be bifurcated as before 'Mannan&Thalapathy' and after 'Thalapathy'. In the first phase, one can witness the real Rajni where he played a normal hero . Yes, there were few exceptions where he presented a South Indian version of 'angry young man' roles which were nothing but the dubbing of Big B's super hit films in the north.

Billa - Don
Ram Robert Rahim - Amar Akbar Antony
Thee - Deewar
Padikkathavan - Khuddar
Mr. Bharath - Trishul
Velaikkaran - Namak Halal
Panakkaran - Laawaris
Dharmathin Thalivan - Kasme Vaade

Most of them were huge hits in Tamil too. But these were movies in which Rajni acted and not made for him. At the same, he has given some exceptional performance in that period. He delivered a stellar performance as 'Iyyampettai Arivudainambi Kariaperumal Chandran' in Thillu Mullu and he continued his work as a 'reckless rich man's son' in Thambikku Entha Oorru, as an 'Absent minded professor' in Dharmathin Thalaivan, as a 'slum prankster' in Guru Shishyan - a film which was completed within 30 days and my personal favorite is 'Rajni-Goundamani' combo in Mannan. All these movies proved the natural sense of humor that he had. If it is 'Sivaji' Ganesan for historical role then as a 'Sadist', Rajni is the best. His 'Parattai' role in 16 Vayadhinille is beyond time and he didn't stop there. His role in Avargal, Moonru Muduthu - in my opinion his best performance along with Parattai, Gayathri, Pollathavan and Netri Kann bolster my opinion. He gave a contrast but classy performance in Mullum Malarum, Jhonny and in Sri Raghavendra. He gained the attention of female audiences through some - what I will call it as a 'Betrayed by siblings or friends' - roles in 6il -60varai, Padikaathavan, Annamalai, Dharma Doorai and Bhairavi. He never felt ashamed to use dupe in the stunt sequences. His belief is that if the final product is good, people - especially the kids - will accept and another reason being that if the hero gets hurt it will stall the entire proceedings.

His second part is more of directors making stories to suit his image. But if the people are happy with this trend and every movie is going to make a business of 40C who will complain and it is not Rajni's fault. In the first, he was like 'Uthsava moorthy' where he was able to do different roles and in the latter part, he is like a Moolavar where he is cemented in the same place (here role) by the people.

Reason behind Rajni's success is that he always delivers 'Entertainment without vulgarity' movies and he never targets a particular set of audiences. Today's young heroes can learn a lot from Rajni and Kamal. They didn't reach this level overnight. First and foremost they had skill and the zeal for the profession. They were ready to toil hard. At the same time they were lucky to have directors like KB, Mani, Barathiraja and Mahendran. They had different styles and they gave movies with new flavor and didn't try to imitate their superstars (MGR and Sivaji). I feel today's heroes are trying to imitate Rajni and Kamal a lot and they expect fame within a short period which will never happen. They can take some lessons from these two great actor's life, but they should have their ownness.