Rajini smashes box office record with Kabali

Superstar Rajinikanth's latest flick Kabali is running to packed houses all over not just in Chennai or Tamil Nadu but all over the world. Kasi theatre in Ashok Nagar area of Chennai has been traditionally the place where the euphoria of a Thalaivar movie is witnessed on the first day.

With Kabali's release, people lined up for the screening of 4 AM show right from 2.30 AM leading to traffic jams even in the early hours.

The estimation of the first-day collection of Kabali - over Rs 40 crores is being lauded all over the nation and the movie is expected to collect over Rs 120 crore in the first weekend with all the shows booked for the weekend.

The film's distributor for non-south markets and CEO at Fox Star Studios, Vijay Singh was quoted saying, "Kabali has lived up to the high expectation and opened to packed houses across India. It was expected to garner an earth shattering opening in the southern markets and it is indeed phenomenal due to the star power of Rajinikanth."

Also, the Tamil version witnessed around 90% occupancy, while the Hindi version garnering a massive 50%.

As per the industry estimates, Kabali opened in 6,500 screens and nearly 3,500 screens were occupied for the first day with over 2,000 screens booked for the entire weekend.

Fans seem to be determined in order to catch their favourite superstar's movie in the first weekend itself as a fan shelled out Rs 1,500 each in Chennai to purchase the tickets in black. Reports also suggested that fans were ready to purchase the Kabali tickets for Rs 5,000.