Rajinikanth is set to return to the big screen with Jailer 2, a rare sequel in which the star is appearing. The Nelson Dilipkumar film is set to release this Thursday, October 15. Advance booking trends are massive, with the film already having crossed the ₹ 50-crore mark in pre-sales.
Thalaivar is back in theatres! All these figures indicate that the Tamil superstar is on course for yet another massive opening day, which may just dwarf what most films have done of late.
Advance bookings for Jailer 2 began in India on October 10. By the morning of October 14 (Wednesday), the film’s advance bookings had crossed ₹ 80 crore worldwide for its opening weekend. But there’s still hope that the presence of stars from across industries in Jailer 2 – with a rumoured Hrithik Roshan cameo – may just push this film into the pan-India territory. Overseas, Jailer 2 is tracking better than not just Jailer or Vijay’s Leo, but also Coolie. The film has crossed $3 million in pre-sales in overseas territories. Trade insiders are betting that Jailer 2 will cross the $7 million mark overseas on its opening day, with some optimistic predictions putting the total at $8 million. This would mean that Jailer 2 can open over ₹ 125 crore worldwide easily, and potentially go up to ₹ 140 crore. Once Jailer 2 crosses the ₹ 120 crore mark in worldwide gross on its opening day, the film will secure the third-biggest opening in Tamil cinema history, behind only Coolie ( ₹ 151 crore) and Leo ( ₹ 142 crore). It will easily beat Rajini’s other blockbusters like Jailer ( ₹ 91 crore) and 2.0 ( ₹ 93 crore). In fact, if the ₹ 140-crore opening materialises for the Nelson Dilipkumar film, it will also surpass recent big films such as Yash’s Toxic ( ₹ 136 crore), Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan ( ₹ 129 crore), and Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal ( ₹ 116 crore). It won’t beat the mark of this year’s biggest opening for an Indian film (Dhurandhar 2 at ₹ 203 crore), but it will easily beat Dhurandhar 1’s opening-day mark of ₹ 41 crore. Jailer 2 sees Nelson Dilipkumar return as the film’s writer and director. Anirudh Ravichander is composing the music for the film, which is hitting screens on October 15. The film has been certified UA 16+ with a runtime of 2 hours and 45 minutes.
They had already begun in select overseas territories a day prior. The film took a running start at the ticket window in pre-sales. The film’s Hindi dub, however, has not set the cash registers ringing so far. It is produced by Kalanithi Maran under Sun Pictures. The film stars Rajinikanth, Ramya Krishnan, Yogi Babu and Mirnaa. Mammootty and Shiva Rajkumar have cameos, as they did in the first part.
