Minutes after Sun Pictures tweeted that Rajinikanth starrer Petta was inching towards Rs 100 crore club in Tamilnadu box office yesterday, came a tweet from KJR Studios, the distributors of Ajith’s Viswasam, claiming that the movie has managed Rs 125 crore in just eight days across the State.
Though the breakdown for the figure claimed by both was not given, the tweets let loose a verbal duel between Rajinikanth and Ajith fans in social media.
They trolled each other and claimed their supremacy at the box office. It has also paved way for a question. Are the producers reporting inflating the box office returns? A section say that both the films, released for Pongal, are doing good. They are holding their forte but certainly not the figures being quoted by them respectively. It is a healthy sign to see two big films releasing on the same day attracting good crowd. But what is sad is that exaggerated figures shown as collection, say a few.
They say producers, distributors, theatre owners need a more reliable system to supply collections data, and the Tamil Film Produers Council and Distributors Council must do something about this. There is a system in Hollywood to calculate the footfall in theatre. It is very transparent. Unfortunately most theatres in Tamilnadu are still to be computerised.
Hence, there is an urgent need to evolve a system to get everything connected. Untill it is done, the inflated figures given by trackers or those associated with a movie will keep coming out, says an industry watcher Kumaraguru.
Petta, directed by Karthik Subbaraj and produced by Sun Pictures was out on 10 January. So was Siruthai Siva’s Viswasam, bankrolled by Sathyjothi Thyagarajan. Thanks to Pongal holidays and good word of mouth, both
are doing good at the box office.