Superstar Rajinikanth and blockbuster director Lokesh Kanagaraj are all set to unleash box office mayhem with Coolie, and the early signs are nothing short of historic. With 10 days still to go before its grand premiere, Coolie has already crossed USD 1 .06 million in North America in advance ticket sales alone — a rare feat achieved by only the biggest South Indian films in recent years. Of the total USA along has contributed USD 917 K for the premiere shows. As of now, the film has sold nearly 35,000 across the United States of America and Canada with some centers already sold out. The way the film is trending in no time the film would be breaking the previous record held by Rajinikanth’s Jailer which had earned $948K from its premieres in USA and Lokesh Kanagaraj’s previous directorial venture starring Thalapathy Vijay Leo: Bloody Sweet minting USD 1.3 million. The film’s trailer was released on 2nd of August with a lot of fanfare but the response to it was rather muted- one would see the final effect of it as the film comes close to the release date. The film boasts of a huge line up from Nagarjuna to Shoubin Shahir , Sathyaraj, Shruti Haasan, Upendra and a cameo by Aamr Khan. The unprecedented pace of advance bookings is also a testament to Rajinikanth’s enduring stardom across generations. Despite being decades into his career, he continues to command massive anticipation, particularly in diaspora-heavy regions like North America which has been dominated by Hindi and Telugu films in the past decade. .Coolie would be clashing with Aditya Chopra’s Spy Universe film War 2 headlined by Hrithik Roshan, Jr NTR and Kiara Advani, directed by Ayan Mukerji. The film currently has more shows lined of it’s premiere than Coolie but it’s advance booking has been very slow. If early trends continue, this Rajini-Kanagaraj juggernaut could easily set new benchmarks not only for Tamil cinema but for Indian cinema’s reach and power in international territories.
