Trade tracker Jerin Georgekutty pegs pre-sales for Rajinikanth's sequel at over ₹37 crore three days before its Thursday opening, with several shows yet to open.
Rajinikanth's Jailer 2 is having a very good Monday evening, at least on paper. Trade tracker Jerin Georgekutty posted on X at 7:56 PM on October 12 that worldwide advance bookings for the film's opening day had crossed ₹37 crore and were closing in on the ₹40 crore mark, three days ahead of its theatrical release.
That's a big number for pre-sales alone, and it's not even the full picture yet. Georgekutty noted that several shows across markets hadn't opened for booking at the time of his post, which means the figure has room to climb further before Thursday.
A word of caution here, because advance booking numbers and final box office collections are not the same thing. What's being tracked right now is tickets sold before release. The real test comes once the film actually hits screens and occupancy through the day tells the real story. Early excitement has a way of translating into either a thunderous opening or a slightly softer one once word of mouth kicks in, and we won't know which till Thursday night.
Still, the appetite is unmistakable. Social media timelines are full of fans counting down to first-day-first-shows, and there's a running joke doing the rounds about Rajinikanth skipping Petta 2 to show up for this one instead. Whatever the merit of that comparison, it tells you where the mood is.
What's riding on Jailer 2
Directed by Nelson Dilipkumar, Jailer 2 is Sun Pictures' big follow-up to the 2023 original, which turned into one of the biggest Tamil hits of that year. Kalanithi Maran's production house is clearly betting big on the sequel, and the cast list suggests why there's buzz beyond the usual Rajinikanth base.
Ramya Krishnan, Yogi Babu, Mirnaa and Rithvik return from the first film, while the sequel adds S. J. Suryah, Mithun Chakraborty, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Vidya Balan, Anna Rajan and Jatin Sarna to the mix. And then there's the cameo roster, which reads like a pan-Indian who's who: Mohanlal, Shiva Rajkumar, Jackie Shroff, Vijay Sethupathi and Hrithik Roshan all make appearances.
Nelson has written and directed the film, with Anirudh Ravichander on music duty, something that alone has kept the film's songs and background score trending since the first promo dropped. Vijay Kartik Kannan handles cinematography and R. Nirmal edits, while Chethan D'Souza is the action director and Drk. Kiran the production designer.
Jailer 2 opens worldwide on October 15. Between now and then, expect the advance booking number to keep ticking upward, and expect every tracker on Tamil film Twitter to be refreshing their numbers by the hour. The bigger question, as always with a Rajinikanth release, is whether the opening-day frenzy holds through the weekend once the reviews start coming in.
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