Southern superstar Rajinikanth, who will soon turn 73, delivered one of the biggest super hits of his career in the recently released Jailer. It collected Rs 600 crore-plus in worldwide box office collections and raked in more than Rs 150 crore in profits for producer Sun Pictures. Rajini himself took home a whopping Rs 110 crore pay cheque, excluding the profit share and a BMW X7 gifted to him by an elated Sun Group Founder-Chairman Kalanithi Maran.
What explains the enduring appeal of ‘Brand Rajini’?
A lot of it could be “divine” as several industry folks point out, but at least some of it is by design either his own or of those around him. For instance, it was at director K. Balachander’s (KB) insistence to develop his own style that Rajini came up with the signature cigarette flip within 24 hours, says Kandaswamy Bharathan, Joint Managing Director of Kavithalayaa Productions, founded by his father-in-law and Rajini’s mentor KB. All good brands have a USP and Rajini’s brand is built on the two pillars of style and punchlines, says Bharathan, also an adjunct faculty at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and ISB, where he teaches a course on the business of films. “Much like a tagline for a corporate brand, he has a punchline, which appeals even to kids. It’s usually a one-liner refreshed for every movie and created an early audience across age groups.” The banner that was behind several of his hit films, including Annamalai, says the punchlines in the film were approved by Rajini himself.
Read the full story: Decoding brand Rajinikanth: What propels the brand value of Rajini, the 72-year-old Tamil superstar?
Consider Baashha, the definitive Rajini film that took him to dizzying heights. It should have been the natural successor to Annamalai. But Rajini chose to defer it in favour of Veera—a comedy on infidelity. Suresh Krissna, who directed the actor in all three films, says he was totally against making Veera. But it was Rajini’s sharp business acumen that knew there was no escaping comparison with their previous super hit film. “He told me, ‘We will have to bring down audience expectations with a hit comedy film. Reserve the heroism for the next film. If you reduce it and amp it up, it will hit the target’.” Baashha did and how, Krissna adds. If Veera got him more family audiences, Baashha and Muthu—the two action super hits released in 1995—cemented his superstar position. During Jailer’s success meet recently, the actor himself spoke of the predicament he faced in picking the right film after Baashha’s success—similar to what he faces today after Jailer. “Jailer’s success made me happy only for five days… after five days, my mind moved on to the next picture. Orey tension [Complete tension]; how to outperform or equal Jailer’s success and deliver another hit?” Rajinikanth’s office did not respond to Business Today’s requests for comment.
Foreign Shores
If Baashha was an instant cult classic locally, Muthu opened up a market for the actor in Japan. One aspect of his bankability is the strong overseas business of his films. Jailer, for instance, collected Rs 196 crore gross in overseas markets. His films do well wherever Tamilians live—whether that is domestically or internationally in the US, Malaysia, Singapore and even Russia, says Ramanathan. But Japan is a unique case where even native Japanese are fans. Three years after Muthu was released in India, a chance opportunity gave the film’s producer Kavithalayaa Productions the idea to release a subtitled version theatrically in Japan along with the now-defunct Japan Cinema Associates. One key strategy was to position Rajini as the Indian Jackie Chan—Muthu was an action comedy and Chan’s popularity as an action comic was spreading from Hong Kong to Japan and Hollywood. It worked. After originally releasing only in five to six screens, the makers had to increase the count due to higher demand. “You can put a movie on a thousand screens but you cannot make people like it,” says Bharathan. Recently, a Japanese couple travelled to India to watch Jailer, while a video clip of Japan’s Ambassador to India, Hiroshi Suzuki, dancing to the film’s song went viral. Muthu and Enthiran are now both case studies at IIM Ahmedabad and ISB.
Yet another marketing strategy at play is of brand scarcity—whether it is Rajini’s deliberate ploy to space out films after Baashha and Muthu for lack of strong scripts (between 2000 and 2010, he had only three releases); or his policy of never appearing in commercials in his five-decade-long career, except in a couple for charitable causes like eye donation.
Krissna says Rajini’s brand is that you have to come and watch the man on the big screen in his movies. “He never believed in being on TV every day. People still always wait for his films.” It’s a trend that top Tamil actors follow to this day, though they appeared in commercials earlier. “Only actors much lower in the rung sign up for commercials here,” says Pillai. Contrast this to the North, where Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are among the top endorsers today. Senthil Kumar, Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson South Asia, says Rajini can easily charge premiums higher than Amitabh Bachchan or even Virat Kohli should he choose to do an ad today. “He has not missed out on anything. Advertising has probably missed out on him.”