Rajinikanth's box office supremacy hinges more on his Pongal release Petta than the blockbuster 2.0

Rajinikanth has shut the mouth of his naysayers in style with the humongous success of _2.0_ . But a section of critics attributes the success of the film to other external factors like Shankar, who himself has a great market in all the four South states and foreign countries. A few say that 2.0 had a terrific run in North India because of Akshay Kumar’s presence in the film. [caption id=“attachment_5715371” align=“alignnone” width=“1200”]  Rajinikanth in a still from Petta. YouTube[/caption] However, no one can claim the box office of Rajinikanth’s Pongal biggie  _Petta_ . The box office numbers of Petta will prove the real crowd-pulling power of the superstar and hence, the performance of the film at the ticket window is very crucial for the 68-year-old actor. Yes, there is an ensemble of actors like Vijay Sethupathi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui , Trisha and Simran in Petta but they do not have the country-wide craze and market like Rajinikanth. Director Karthik Subbaraj is familiar only among the urban crowd in Tamil Nadu. Even the neighboring Telugu state audiences do not know much about him. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, moviegoers will bet their money on Petta only for Rajinikanth. So how is the trade situation? In Tamil Nadu,  the only competition to Petta is Ajith’s  Viswasam . Known for his solid young fan base, Ajith’s film will give tough competition to the Rajinikanth-starrer in the initial weekend. Talking about the two biggies releasing on the same day, veteran distributor Tiruppur Subramaniam says, “Two big films can actually release for Pongal festival. It’s a long weekend so the film industry should actually give the multiple choices for the audiences. For Diwali,  _Sarkar_  was the only release so audiences had no other option but for Pongal, they have two movies." The distributor says that Rajinikanth still has the same craze. “People say that after Kabali and  _Kaala_ , Rajinikanth lost his craze but that’s not true. The content of these two films was weak and only because of that, they didn’t do well at the box office. 2.0 had a long run because this is how audiences want to see Rajinikanth on the big screen," says Subramaniam. In Telugu, distributors initially suggested Petta producer Sun Pictures to release the Telugu version on 26 January. But Sun Pictures felt that the simultaneous release in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi will only fetch them a record opening. In Telugu, the competition is certainly tougher than Tamil. Petta will also be fighting against Balakrishna’s  _NTR Kathanayakudu_ , Ram Charan’s commercial potboiler  Vinaya Vidheya Rama  and Venkatesh-Varun Tej’s F2: Fun and Frustration. NTR Kathanayakudu is scheduled to release on 9 January_,_ Vinaya Vidheya Rama will hit the screens on 11 January and F2: Fun and Frustration will release on 12 January. The Rajinikanth-starrer will release on 10 January in all the three languages and the biggest challenge is to mint money will in the two Telugu states. In fact, at the pre-release event of Petta in Hyderabad, the local distributor blamed the three Telugu big heroes (Ram Charan, Balakrishna and Venkatesh) and their influential families for holding all major screens for their films. The Hindi box office of Petta will be another interesting area to watch out for because unlike 2.0, this film is not backed by a big label like Dharma Productions. And Nawazuddin Siddiqui is not a big star like Akshay Kumar in Hindi. Trade sources in Tamil Nadu feel that the trailer and first look posters of Petta clearly say that it is going to be a trademark Rajinikanth film which his fans were longing for. After  Sivaji(2007),  Petta is billed as a formulaic Rajinikanth film, so fans are quite excited and there is a huge craze for the tickets in Tamil Nadu. But the success of the film in other states like Andhra, Telangana and North India is purely based on the content and the taste of the local audiences. On the positive side, Petta does not have to collect as much as 2.0 to enter into the profit zone because of its limited budget. The hype and massive success of 2.0 will actually help Petta. The spokesperson of Ram Muthuram Cinemas says, “2.0 had an average opening in our theater (for Rajinikanth standards) because of the back-to-back disappointing films like Kabali and Kaala. But in the long run, the film has become a blockbuster. The grandeur and brand Shankar are the other talking points of 2.0 apart from Rajinikanth but in case of Petta, audiences will come to the theater only for the superstar. The massive success of 2.0 has actually given the extra push for Petta. The expectations are huge and we are witnessing the craze which we used to witness for the Superstar films in the past."