Rajinikanth, who has spent five decades in Indian cinema, has just done something that most of his younger rivals have not: a sequel of his took the second-biggest worldwide weekend gross. Jailer 2, his Tamil-language action comedy, earned $31.2 million over the October 16 to 18 weekend, according to Rentrak estimates. Only Paramount’s Street Fighter, at $51.1 million, did better.
From bus conductor to the screen
He was born Shivaji Rao Gaikwad on 12 December 1950 in Bangalore, the youngest of four children in a Marathi family. His father was a police constable. His mother died when he was nine. After school he took several jobs, including coolie, before becoming a bus conductor with the Bangalore Transport Service, all the while acting in plays. An advertisement for the newly formed Madras Film Institute got him to enrol, with financial help from a friend and co-worker, Raj Bahadur. The director K. Balachander spotted him there, gave him his stage name and told him to learn Tamil. He did. He can read it, though not write it.
His debut was Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal in 1975. For a while he played villains. S. P. Muthuraman cast him in a sympathetic role in Bhuvana Oru Kelvi Kuri in 1977, and Mullum Malarum and Aval Appadithan the next year brought critical praise. Mullum Malarum won him a Special Prize for Best Actor at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards.
Stardom
The turning point was Billa in 1980, a remake of the Hindi hit Don in which he played two roles. It was his biggest commercial success to that point and fixed his action-hero image. He played three roles in Moondru Mugam in 1982 and made his Hindi debut a year later in Andhaa Kaanoon. Nallavanukku Nallavan won him the Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Actor in 1984. Geraftaar and ChaalBaaz followed in Hindi.
In the 1990s, Thalapathi earned him major acclaim and his collaborations with Suresh Krissna produced Annaamalai and Baashha, the latter the highest-grossing Tamil film for years. Then came Mannan, Uzhaippali and K. S. Ravikumar’s Muthu and Padayappa. Padayappa passed Baashha as his highest earner and as Tamil cinema’s.
After a few years away, he returned with the comedy horror Chandramukhi in 2005, which became the highest-grossing Tamil film of all time. Sivaji in 2007 was the first Tamil film, and the third Indian film, to join the 100 Crore Club. Enthiran and its sequel 2.0 followed, each the most expensive Indian production of its day. Jailer, Coolie and Jailer 2 have made him the only actor in the industry with four films above the 500 crore mark. The Government of India has honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 2000, the Padma Vibhushan in 2016 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2019.
Jailer 2 by the numbers
Directed by Nelson Dilipkumar, the film opened in India on October 15 and made an estimated INR224 crore ($23.5 million) across a four-day extended start. That is the third-highest on record for a Tamil film and level with Coolie at INR224.25 crore. Tamil Nadu delivered $8.4 million. In North America it took $3.2 million over the weekend and debuted at No. 9.
By day eight, Sacnilk put the worldwide gross at Rs 606.05 crore. That is ahead of the lifetime totals of Jailer, which ended at Rs 604.74 crore, and of Vijay’s Leo, at Rs 605.90 crore. Domestic takings dropped 39.1 percent on Thursday to Rs 17.15 crore, so the overseas market carried it past the Rs 600 crore line.
The cast crosses industries. Mohanlal and Shiva Rajkumar return from the first film, Jackie Shroff plays Kamdev and Vidya Balan joins as Kaantha. Hrithik Roshan appears as Roddy, forty years after he was a child in the 1986 Hindi film Bhagwan Dada alongside Rajinikanth.
Rajinikanth says he is generally wary of sequels, because they take the first film, add some flavour and call it another. He turned down ideas for Baasha 2 and for a Petta 2 that Karthik Subbaraj pitched. Jailer was different. Watching it again on OTT, he said, he saw the ending, where the villain warns him of a huge network and mentions three containers worth Rs 1,000 crore. “I felt there was a perfect story for a sequel,” he said.
Sources
- Rajinikanth
- Rajinikanth’s ‘Jailer 2’ Ranks No. 2 at Global Box Office as ‘Street Fighter’ Leads
- Jailer 2 Box Office Collection Day 8: Rajinikanth’s Film Beats Prequel’s Lifetime Collection, Earns Rs 606 Crore
Photo: Dani Charles, Silverscreen Media Inc. (https://silverscreen.in) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
