Summer, is traditionally the best season to release big budget star spangled films anywhere in the world. In Tamilnadu, summer releases take place in April-May, when the schools and all educational institutes are closed and people are in a holiday mood.

Movie stills: Rajini in Shivaji | Audio review | Shivaji Special

The continuous change in the release date of the superstar’s Sivaji( first announced release date was April 14, then it became May 31, the latest date announced through newspaper ads is June 15) has caused heartburns among other producers in Tamilnadu. The release date of Kamal’s Dasavatharam Ajit’s Kireedam and Vikram’s Bheema which were originally scheduled for May had to be postponed.

So, this year April- May season when the box-office booms and is ideal for blockbuster releases has been totally wasted by the Kollywood industry. None of the top five superstars – Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Vijay, Vikram and Ajit had a release in the 2007 summer. For the first time in the history of Tamil commercial cinema (from the halcyon days of MGR) the months of April and May, will go without a single superstar release!

You can’t put the blame on the producers, because it is the distributors and exhibitors who did not want any other film to be released along with Sivaji, two weeks after or before the release of the biggie. According to a leading producer whose big budget film could have released for summer- “My distributors and theatres were scared that my film will be blown away by the Sivaji wave. At the end of the day what happened was the wave never came, and interest rate on my borrowings has gone through the roof!”

The winner of all this confusion and delay was Spider-man 3, who has taken the summer box-office by storm! Spidey weaved a web all over Tamilnadu with a record 100 prints and the buzz is that he will fly away from Tamilnadu with a share anywhere between Rs 3.5 to Rs 5 Crore! A Chennai city multiplex share alone will be a whopping Rs 36 Lakhs! The film had no competition from our Tamil superstars, and even family audience in B and C stations preferred Spider-man 3 to the Tamil films dumped on them, this summer!

The only silver lining for Kollywood this summer is that some low budget movies with no stars like Chennai-600028and Naan Avan Illai got an audience and were moderate hits. At the same time Paruthiveeran and Mozhi managed to get an extended dream run in the cities, and playing time in more centres, which made them super hits.

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