How Rajinikanth's Petta and Ajith's Viswasam steered Tamil film industry to a historic box-office period

Pongal 2019 will be undoubtedly remembered in Tamil cinema for a long time by distributors, theater owners and all the significant stakeholders from the industry including cinephiles and box-office trackers. Petta vs Viswasam was the first ever clash between Superstar Rajinikanth and Thala Ajith at the box-office, and the results at the ticket window have been extremely heartening for both sides. It’s been exactly 30 days since both films saw the light of day on 10 January, the long extended weekend of Pongal holidays, and set the cash registers ringing. As of now, the combined theatrical sales of Petta and Viswasam stand at a whopping Rs 235 cr in Tamil Nadu. In fact, more than Rs 200 cr of the revenue from both films have come from the 22 odd days in January alone. [caption id=“attachment_5715361” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Rajinikanth in Petta.[/caption] Trade pundits now say that solo release strategy will no longer be an accessible luxury for any star hero in Tamil cinema with umpteen number of productions underway. “I think Sarkar released in Diwali 2018 would be remembered as the last big solo release in Kollywood. Going forward, there is going to be a lot of inevitable clashes for all key festivals, and it will be a healthy situation for Tamil cinema as far as trade is concerned. For Diwali 2019, along with Vijay’s tentatively titled Thalapathy 63, more films will definitely join the fray. With both Viswasam and Petta raking in the moolah at the TN box-office, it has given more confidence for other producers to release their films alongside big-budget star films,” trade analyst Trinath told Firstpost. While the Karthik Subbaraj-directed Petta has garnered an excellent total of Rs 109.5 cr from Tamil Nadu, Viswasam helmed by Siva has collected a cumulative gross of Rs 125.5 cr and will soon become the second highest-grossing film in the state, only behind SS Rajamouli’s globe-trotting blockbuster Baahubali: The Conclusion. The numbers accomplished by Viswasam in TN have left everyone in awe since it is all set to dethrone solo Diwali release blockbusters of Thalapathy Vijay such as Mersal and Sarkar. [caption id=“attachment_5026541” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Viswasam first look poster. Image from Twitter[/caption] Vinay of Ram Cinemas, Tirunelveli, one of the important celebratory locations for fans in TN, says two big films releasing for a traditional festival is a good sign for the trade. “I would say that we can easily accommodate another small budget film too on a festival date. Two big movies and one small film can be easily scheduled, and it will give more variety to both audiences and theater owners. We need not have to depend on just one content. Both the films have done extremely well for us, in terms of opening and sustaining too. We have not released any new films in our theater yet. Dev will be the first film after Petta and Viswasam,” tells Vinay. The main reason why trade is very enthused about the revenue generated by Viswasam, which is still running in more than 200 screens in TN in its fifth week, is that it is one of the very few films that yielded an overflow of more than Rs 10 crores for distributors in the last few years. Only a handful of movies such as Baahubali: The Beginning, Baahubali: The Conclusion, Kadaikutty Singam (registered more footfalls than Rajinikanth’s Kaala in 2018), and Kanchana 2 have attained this incredible feat before. Producer TG Thiagarajan of Sathya Jyothi Films confirmed the blockbuster success of Viswasam in a recent interaction. “If it had received a solo release like Sarkar, or Mersal, it would have surpassed the records held by Baahubali 2 in Tamil Nadu. A lot of distributors have said this to me. I was confident from the beginning itself about Viswasam and never wanted to hold the release,” he said. Thiagarajan also said that the war of words on Twitter between the distributors of both films put in a spot of bother since he has a long-standing working relationship with Sun Pictures, who produced Petta.