Music composer AR Rahman, who recently got to watch Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, said that Rajinikanth’s Kochadaiyaan, that released in 2014, could have been as huge as SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus.
“I’ll tell you about Baahubali! Even before Baahubali, Shekhar Kapur wanted to make this film called Paani. He had predicted the same thing around seven years ago. He kept trying, but then it slipped out. Then Rajinikanth sir’s Kochadaiyaan could have been a Baahubali, but the animation and CG went wrong. So, it is not like Baahubali is the first film of such scale – there were many attempts earlier, but they were not successful. The belief is right, but the steps were wrong. The Baahubali team is very lucky – they’re very talented, and they are nice people,” Deccan Chronicle quotes him saying.
Rahman was at Cannes Film Festival for two of his films – Sundar C’s Sanghamithra and his directorial debut Le Musk. He had reportedly watched Rajamouli’s film at a city screening after Cannes and felt the film should “cross Rs 2000 crore and above” at the box office.
Kochadaiyaan starring Rajinikanth and directed by his daughter Soundarya, was promoted as “a tribute to the centennial of Indian cinema” and released worldwide in 3D and for traditional viewing on 23 May 2014 in Tamil and five additional languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi.
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However, the film was critically panned for its animation work. Though the film fared well in Tamil, it performed poorly in other parts of India, including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Producers were also in a financial tangle after the film’s release.
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, however, released to positive reviews from critics and surpassed the 2014 Hindi film PK, to become the highest grossing Indian film of all time, collecting approx Rs 800 crore (US $ 120 million) worldwide within just six days of its release. It became the first ever Indian film to gross over Rs 1000 crore (US $ 155 million) in all languages in just ten days.