Thug Life: Kamal Haasan’s Film Creates History With Its Overseas Rights Deal, Beats Thalapathy Vijay’s Leo?

Thug Life star Kamal Haasan has earned several monikers over the years, from Aandavar (god) to Universal Hero to Sakalakala Vallavan (jack of all talents) because of how he has proved his mettle as an actor. Throughout his career, he has focused on choosing roles that display the extent of his versatility, as opposed to choosing ‘big’ banner films or working with big directors. As a result, Kamal never featured in any blockbuster list as such and remained married to his character actor image.

But that started to change with Dasavatharam (2008), a big-budget movie that was massive for its time in terms of scale of production, where he played multiple roles. The film grossed 200 crores worldwide. Then in 2013, he did Vishwaroopam, which grossed 220 crores worldwide, and followed it up with Vishwaroopam 2 which did extremely well. But did these movies mark the true genesis of Kamal as a mass hero?

We think it was Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Vikram (2022) that did it for him. The style, the tone, the camera work, and the acting by Kamal and others like Fahadh Faasil, Vijay Sethupathi, and Surya, and the fact that it was set in the Lokiverse made it a spectacular mass movie. It was a massive blockbuster with a worldwide collection of over 400 crores gross. Now, Kamal is gearing up for two major releases, Indian 2 and Thug Life.

Speaking about Thug Life, the film marks Kamal Haasan and director Mani Ratnam’s reunion after the cult-classic Nayakan (1987). Now, as per the latest update, Thug Life‘s overseas theatrical rights have been sold for a whopping 63 crores already to AP International and Home Screen Entertainment.

This is the biggest sum offered for any Tamil film, beating Thalapathy Vijay’s Leo (2023), which reportedly cracked a deal worth 60 crores. So is it going to be Kamal versus Vijay now, before Vijay retires from films soon to join politics? We shall know soon.

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