Coolie box office day 1:
Rajinikanth's Coolie, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj arrived in theatres on Thursday and was welcomed with much celebrations from fans. The action thriller had already broken many box office records even before release with its pre-sales numbers and now has earned over Rs 65 crore on its opening day in theatres across India, a massive feat achieved by the star and the team of Coolie.
According to Sacnilk, Coolie achieved an overall occupancy of 98.75 in Trichy, 97.75 per cent in Chennai and recorded similar numbers in Coimbatore, Dindigul and Puducherry. Vellore had 95 per cent, which was followed by 89.25 per cent occupancy in Bengaluru and Salem, and 86.25 per cent in Madurai. In other states, Kochi celebrated Rajinikanth with an impressive occupancy of 87.75 per cent and Thiruvananthapuram with 70.50 per cent. In the north, Coolie registered over 50 per cent occupancy in Mumbai and the NCR regions. Official numbers regarding its worldwide collections is awaited from the makers.
Despite a strong start, which gave the star his career-best opening, Coolie has not broken Leo's record. Lokesh Kanagaraj's previous film with Vijay had earned Rs 76.2 crore on its first day. However, on the brighter side, the latest film has surpassed two of Lokesh's own films - Karthi's Kaithi (Rs 6.4 crore) and Kamal Haasan's Vikram (Rs 37.5 crore).
Coolie has also outperformed the opening day collections of several of Rajinikanth’s previous films, including TJ Gnanavel’s Vettaiyan (Rs 31.5 crore), Nelson Dilipkumar’s Jailer (Rs 48.35 crore), Karthik Subbaraj’s Petta (Rs 14 crore), and Shankar’s 2.0 (Rs 23 crore). This successful run is expected to continue through the first weekend with Coolie set to easily surpass the Rs 150 crore mark.
On the reviews side, Coolie has been getting positive reactions for Rajinikanth's dominating screen presence, but was criticised for its disjointed story and screenplay featuring too many characters.
Our CE review of the film read, "After a compelling start, Rajinikanth's Deva and Coolie forget to have fun and are burdened by a cross that they unnecessarily carry throughout the 169-minute runtime."
Coolie reunites Rajinikanth with his Mr Bharath (1986) co-star Sathyaraj. The star-studded cast also includes Nagarjuna, Upendra, Sathyaraj, Shruti Haasan, and Soubin Shahir, among others. Aamir Khan and Pooja Hegde play cameo roles in the film. The film, produced by Sun Pictures, has music composed by Anirudh, cinematography by Girish Gangadharan and editing by Philomin Raj.