There may still be a question mark on the certification of Thalapathy Vijay’s Tamil Jana Nayagan, but that hasn’t prevented the cinemas from selling tickets for the January 9 release on the advance booking counters. Except for the national multiplex chains, all other single-screen cinemas and multiplexes/multiplex chains (non-national) are making brisk sales at the plans for the coming weekend and week starting January 9. Among the national chains, Rohini is the only one which opened its plans in Madras — but that was only on Monday, January 5. What’s more, Rohini has started the advance booking for tickets from January 12 and onwards only. That means, Rohini is not risking it by selling tickets in advance for January 9, 10 and 11. The logic is that the certificate issue will definitely be resolved before January 12. If it is resolved before that, the cinema is confident of selling tickets on the current booking counters.
The advance bookings so far for the Tamil version are to the tune of Rs. 9-10 crore. The Overseas advance bookings are even more telling — tickets worth more than Rs. 30-plus crore have already been sold! The consolidated figure of Rs. 40-plus crore by way of ticket sales in advance is without the national multiplex chains (except Rohini) participating. Had PVR Inox also started advance booking without waiting for the CBFC certificate, the consolidated figure would have probably gone up to more than Rs. 60 crore!!
The euphoria is the same outside Tamil Nadu too. Whether in Bombay, Pune or in the Delhi-NCR region, the tickets for Jana Nayagan are selling like hot cakes. The main reason for the unprecedented sale is the fact that Vijay has announced his retirement from acting after this film. That means, this will be his last film before he takes up politics as a full-fledged profession.
The matter of the film’s certification is most likely to be decided within a few hours because it has been listed for hearing today (January 7). It is only after the original Tamil version is certified that the dubbed versions — Hindi (titled Jan Neta), and Telugu (titled Jana Nayakudu) — will be cleared by the CBFC.
