The latest film starring South Indian megastar Ajith Kumar, Vidaamuyarchi, which was released in cinemas all over the world on Feb 6, means “perseverance” or “relentless effort” in Tamil.
However, the movie seems to need little effort in becoming another Indian box office success.
Based on advance ticket sales, the movie is poised to become one of the highest-grossing Tamil films. As of Wednesday afternoon, the action-thriller has grossed nearly Rs8.74 crores ($1.3 million) at the domestic box office, according to industry tracker Sacnilk.
The Times of India reported that “Vidaamuyarchi has already crossed the US$300,000 mark in advance sales, solidifying its place as Ajith’s highest-grossing premiere in North America.”
Directed by Magizh Thirumeni, Vidaamuyarchi is produced by Lyca Productions, a major film production company best known for producing high-budget Tamil films such as 2.0 and Ponniyin Selvan.
Magizh also penned the film’s screenplay, based on the 1997 Hollywood movie Breakdown, starring Kurt Russell.
According to The Hollywood Reporter India, the makers of Breakdown were not too pleased when Vidaamuyarchi’s teaser was released late last year. It hinted at a tense and suspenseful story of a man desperately searching for his missing wife. Apparently, the comparisons between the plot of both films resulted in Paramount Pictures (the distributor for Breakdown) to claim plagiarism. The issue caused Vidaamuyarchi to be postponed from its initial release date in January.
The plagiarism kerfuffle has not affected the film’s pre-release publicity. The movie’s official trailer dropped on YouTube just two weeks ago and has already racked up a whopping 17.8 million views.
Fans of Ajith, who affectionately refer to him as thala (leader), were ecstatic and flooded the comments section with nothing but words of praise for the “elevated cinematography” and “goosebumps-inducing” background score.
The film’s cast includes Trisha Krishnan, who plays the wife that gets mysteriously kidnapped and Arjun Sarja, who appears to be the film’s antagonist.
