Coolie Movie Box Office Collection Prediction Day 1: Rajinikanth-starrer books Rs 100 cr opening weekend

Having sold more than 1.2 million tickets online in India before its release, Coolie has entered the big league and already posits as Tamil cinema’s golden ticket to the kind of national numbers that we have come to associate with Bollywood, Kannada, and Telugu films.

There were, of course, expectations regarding an ensemble crime film starring Rajnikanth, Nagarjuna Akkineni, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, Shruti Haasan, and Aamir Khan in an extended cameo to create great buzz. Industry Tracker Ramesh Bala told SCREEN, “We can easily look forward to a Rs 150 crore opening for Coolie during the weekend, which is a monumental figure for Tamil cinema. The weekend sales are expected to be at an all-time high, and we can see big numbers there”.

“Unusually, the Hindi market too seems to be responding very well to Coolie due to the Rajnikanth, Lokesh Kanagaraj, and Aamir Khan factor. This is truly the celebration of 50 years of superstar Rajnikanth in the industry, and B and C centres have also chipped in very favourably in the last few days of booking. Despite some lukewarm big-ticket releases in recent times, the trailer and the score by Anirudh seem to have worked their magic. The long Independence Day weekend window will also help the film greatly, and if the word of mouth from the first day is good, we are looking at unprecedented figures.”

Watch SCREEN’s exclusive interview with Nasser here:

Trade Analyst Sreedhar Pillair also shared his two cents on the Coolie bookings rampage situation. “We are all looking at Coolie with astronomical expectations, and there is no doubt about the record opening speculations. The Rajni-Lokesh collaboration seems to be working big time, and fans are interested to see what they have served up with the support of Anirudh’s crowd-favorite score.”

But, will Coolie manage to become the first Tamil film to enter the Rs 1,000 crore club? “Let us take it slow and not get ahead of ourselves. I am looking at the data coming in and feel that Coolie has all the potential to do what films like KGF, Baahubali did for their respective industries, if word of mouth after the first shows is out,” Pillai answers.

He also counts Rajinikanth-starrer’s achievements. “Selling 2 million tickets in North America is a big achievement, and Coolie has managed to enter the elite club with these numbers. From where I look at it, the expectations and ground reality are on par with what this project promised from the very first day it was announced. Superstar Rajinikanth teaming up with the young blockbuster filmmaker Lokesh Kanagaraj is getting the hype and momentum that the film rightly deserves, and this will truly be a litmus test for the maximum potential of Tamil cinema.“