Ilayathalapathy Vijay’s much-hyped film Puli released after a major hiccup in theatres on October 1. However, it doesn’t seem to have performed at the box office as expected.
This movie is stated to have been made at a budget of Rs 100 crore – the highest, in fact, for any Vijay film. Producer Shibu Thamees and PT Selvakumar ensured that no expense was spared to make this fantasy action film. However, the reviews and audience reactions for the film have been quite mixed with many citing that it failed to meet their expectations. So now the big question is - will Puli recover its Rs 100 crore investment?
Though the film was given a U certificate by the Censor Board, it wasn’t granted entertainment tax exemption by the state government. This is a big blow to distributors who were counting on the tax exemption to recover investments. Industry sources say that since the movie was not granted tax exemption, distributors put pressure on the producers to return some of the amounts they had paid for the film on Wednesday. This also caused an issue delaying the release of the film and cancellation of shows.
The movie released in Tamil Nadu at 11 30 am on Thursday and in Andhra Pradesh is likely to release late on Friday, October 2. All shows were cancelled on Thursday in Andhra Pradesh. On October 2, Hindi film Singh is Bling is releasing as well as Telugu film Shivam. These movies will also bite into the market share of Puli. All these factors will also hit Puli’s collections at the box office.
Fortunately, the satellite rights for the film had already been bought by Sun TV last year. It is rumoured that Sun TV paid a whopping Rs 22 crore for the satellite rights of this film.
Now it remains to be seen how the movie does over the weekend. There will be more clarity on Monday as to whether Vijay’s Puli manages to recover most of its money or not.
