No doubt Rajinikanth has the status of God in the South, especially Tamil Nadu. But it’s time to face the writing on the wall regarding his Northern viewership. The actor-politician has no market value in the North. After the abysmal performance of the Hindi version of Rajini’s last release Peta, it looks like his new film Darbar is also slow-bound.
The film opened on Thursday, January 9, to underwhelming audiences in Hindi.
Says a source from a leading multiplex chain, “Darbar in the Hindi version has opened very poorly everywhere. In a centre like Bihar, the opening was as bad as 2-8 per cent. We had to remove shows from Friday and replace them with Tanhaji and Chhapaak.”
This source says it’s time for the producers of Rajinikanth’s films to stop pushing them in the North. “It makes no sense to dub Rajini’s film in Hindi. All of them do badly. Only Shankar’s 2: 0 did well in Hindi, and that was only because of Akshay Kumar. The rest of Rajini’s recent releases have tanked in Hindi.”
Interestingly the original Telugu version of Darbar has opened to a heartening response in Delhi and Mumbai while the dubbed Hindi version has opened poorly in both cities.