Return of the King ; Rs 60 Crore and Still Counting. Rajnikant's Chandramukhi Revives His Career and Gives a Fillip to Tamil Cinema's Fortunes.
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Summary
A remake of a 12-year-old Mohan Lal blockbuster. A star whose equity had taken a beating. A production house whose best days were behind it. The odds seemed against it, but over a month after its release, Chandramukhi, Rajnikant's Rs 19 crore Tamil movie, has raked in Rs 60 crore-and still counting-at the box office, breaking the record set by Padayappa, another film by the superstar in 1998.
For Rajnikant, whose Baba bombed in 2002, the latest thriller has netted Rs 15 crore in salary and profit share. But when the 54-year- old announced Chandramukhi on October 1 last year, the birth anniversary of actor Shivaji Ganesan, critics did not give it a chance at the box office. The superstar, famous for his punchlines and cigarette flicks, was down and almost out. Not only had he lost money on Baba-he had to return Rs 5 lakh each to the aggrieved distributors-but he had also been embarrassed politically when his call to defeat PMK candidates in the 2004 general elections fell on deaf ears. With Jaggubhai, which was to have political overtones, also being shelved, it did not seem the best of times for Rajnikant to make a remake. But he believed in the film, even calling up director P. Vasu, who remade the original Manichitrathazhu in Kannada, for the project.See the full content of this document
Extract
Return of the King ; Rs 60 Crore and Still Counting. Rajnikant's Chandramukhi Revives His Career and Gives a Fillip to Tamil Cinema's Fortunes.
So what makes Chandramukhi click? Neither director Vasu nor Rajnikant can claim any novelty in terms of story telling or techniques. The film is a rehash of several before. A couple move into a house suppos...
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