The Greatest of All Time: Thalapathy Vijay's magnum opus facing Rs 50 crore loss at box office?

The rise of streaming platforms in India, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has drastically altered the cinema business, reshaping the industry’s dynamics. The effects of these changes are visible across films of all scales, and Thalapathy Vijay's highly anticipated The Greatest of All Time is no exception.

The Greatest of All Time is poised to dominate theatres across South Indian states, with shows starting as early as 4 AM. However, the film's showing will be greatly affected in North Indian states. The national multiplex chains will not be screening The Greatest of All Time due to the movie's pre-release agreement with its streaming partner.

Sources within the trade reveal that this move by the national chains stems from the film’s anticipated early streaming debut, potentially within a month of its theatrical release. This decision echoes the situation with Vijay's previous film Leo, which faced a similar boycott in North India last year.

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"Leo missed around Rs 50 crore in theatrical returns at that time," Girish Johar, producer and film business expert, told Desimartini.

Leo, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, opened in cinemas on October 19, coinciding with the Puja holidays. Due to the movie's streaming deal, the national chains steered clear of Leo and gave all the screens to Tiger Shroff's Ganapath. However, the reviews for Ganapath were unanimously negative, and terrible word-of-mouth caused the movie to tank at the box office. Ganapath was dead on arrival in the cinemas. Meanwhile, Leo exceeded trade expectations and emerged as the biggest hit in Vijay's career in the Hindi belt.

According to some estimates, Leo earned upwards of Rs 50 crore just from single screens in North India. Girish believes that the movie might have earned an additional Rs 50 crore had it received top billing in the national chains.

Girish noted that The Greatest of All Time enjoys decent awareness among audiences in North India, which is huge considering the producers have made no effort to promote the movie to Hindi audiences. "The rest all depends on word of mouth," he added.

Based on Girish's assessment, it seems The Greatest of All Time is also facing a potential loss of Rs 50 crore if the Thalapathy Vijay movie clicks with audiences of single screens.

However, Akshay Rathi, a leading film exhibitor in North India, believes that any loss the producers of the Thalapathy Vijay starrer may incur is likely to be inconsequential. 

"There is a high chance it may not be a loss at all, because for having a smaller window, they get a premium price," Akshay told Desimartini. 

The producers of The Greatest of All Time reportedly secured more than Rs 90 crore from the sale of the film's streaming rights, a figure that could offset any losses incurred from the lack of multiplex screenings.

"Maybe that premium that they've got is more than what could have been generated by their actual earnings in theatres. So it's something that only time will tell," Akshay added, highlighting the uncertain nature of the situation.

With advance sales alone expected to gross over Rs 100 crore, The Greatest of All Time is poised to surpass Leo’s lifetime record-breaking global ticket sales of over Rs 600 crore. 

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