Varisu vs Thunivu, Thalapathy Vijay film earns more than Ajith Kumar’s in pre-release business: Report
Thalapathy Vijay’s film Varisu and Ajith Kumar’s film Thunivu have been the talk of the town for the last few weeks. With the trailers of both films also released, competition has now heated up. The unofficial pre-release business reports of both films have emerged and it looks like Vijay’s Varisu has taken a wide lead over Thunivu.
VARISU PRE-RELEASE BIZ:-
As per unofficial reports, Varisu has made a whopping pre-release business of over Rs 300 crore. The breakdown of the figure is as follows – the Tamil Nadu (TN) rights, which are the most important for any Vijay film, were quoted at Rs 70 crore. The Chengalpattu, Coimbatore, North Arcot, and South Arcot areas, which are critical, ultimately were taken by Red Giant Movies on an 8 % commission basis from Seven Screen Studio, which had acquired the TN rights. Vijay has a strong fan following in Kerala and the rights there were sold for Rs 6.5 crore while Karnataka rights went for Rs 8 crore. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where Dil Raju is distributing the film himself, the rights went for Rs 18 crore.
Overseas rights always form a chunk of the pre-release business and Varisu made Rs 32 crore from the sale of those rights. The Hindi dubbing rights of Varisu were apparently sold for Rs 34 crore and T-Series acquired the audio rights of the film for Rs 10 crore. The OTT platform to bag Varisu was Amazon Prime, which paid the hefty sum of Rs 75 crore for the film. Sun TV is the official satellite partner and the company reportedly paid Rs 57 for satellite rights.
Thus, Varisu has done a massive pre-release business of Rs 310.5 crore in total.
THUNIVU PRE-RELEASE BUSINESS:-
Ajith Kumar’s Thunivu has done well, but are the figures better than those of Varisu? From what is being stated, the Tamil Nadu theatrical rights were sold outright to Red Giant Movies for Rs 60 crore. This is an extremely good number for TN.
Ajith does not have as big a fan following as Vijay in Kerala or Karnataka, and thus the rights for those states sold at a lower figure. Kerala rights went for Rs 2.5 crore and Karnataka at Rs 3.6 crore. The Hindi dubbing rights were sold for Rs 25 crore and the music rights for Rs 2 crore. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana rights were sold for Rs 1.5 crore.
The digital rights were acquired by Netflix for Rs 65 crore and the satellite rights by Kalaignar TV for Rs 20 crore. The overseas rights were bought by Lyca for Rs 14 crore.
Thus, the total pre-release business for Thunivu stands at Rs 193.6 crore.
BOX OFFICE NUMBERS:-
The gamechanger for these films will now be the box office collections. Both films are releasing on January 11 and since the Tamil Nadu government has declared holidays till January 17, both parties will try to cash in as much as possible over this 6 day holiday period.
Varisu producer Dil Raju is currently in Chennai and will be here till the release of the film, say sources. Since this is his first Tamil film release, he is extremely involved in the business here and wants to ensure that Varisu is a big Pongal hit. He is expected to watch Varisu FDFS at Rohini Theatre on January 11.