Kollywood saw a massive clash between two big movies that were released during Diwali. One was the much-hyped AR Murugadoss’s 7aam Arivu and the other, Jeyam Raja’s Velayudham. With two popular heroes of Kollywood — Suriya and Vijay — battling it out on this festive occasion, it was rather surprising to learn who actually won the hearts of the masses this time.
7aam Arivu, produced by Udayanidhi Stalin’s Red Giant Films, saw massive publicity that ran for nearly a month before its release. Expectations too were soaring high for this film as the director who gave a runaway hit like Ghajini (both in Hindi and Tamil) was expected to deliver triple the success for this one.
Adding to the hype was Suriya’s role as Bodhidharma (a Buddhist monk) and Shruti Haasan debut in Tamil cinema.
On the other hand, Vijay’s Velayudham was promoted at a mediocre scale in and around Tamil Nadu. With Vijay playing the role of a super-hero for the first time in his career, this one too created a lot of buzz before its release.
However, post the release, Velayudham’s stupendous victory has come as a rather surprising one. With critics and audiences voting for Vijay’s super-hero flick over Suriya’s 7aam Arivu, the results have proved to be a shocker.
What really turned the tables? Says a source, “Before the release of these two movies, it seemed clear that 7aam Arivu would win over Velayudham. The film’s massive promotional activities, claiming it as ‘something unseen’, proved to be a wrong tactic, once the film was released. With a lot of commercial elements in the film and scripting errors, people were let down by the Suriya-Murugadoss’s combination.”
As a matter of fact, Velayudham which was released in comparatively lesser number of theatres across the country, has raked in more than 7aam Arivu in the first week of its theatrical release. “Velayudham was promoted as an out-and-out commercial entertainer and did surprise the audiences when it was released. Though it had lesser publicity compared to the former, it has proven to be the ultimate winner. And while both the movies enjoyed a massive opening, the rather critical reviews let 7aam Arivu down,” adds the source. For films that rely only on promotional activities, the clear win of Velayudham proves to be a resounding lesson.
