2.0 ticket booking on BookMyShow: Is Rajinikanth's film witnessing poor pre-sales?

In less than 48 hours, Rajinikanth's magnum opus 2.0 will hit the screens. Even as the fans await the release of the multilingual movie with bated breathe in Tamil Nadu, the pre-ticket sales are not up to the mark owing to multiple reasons in other parts of the country. 

To begin with, the full-fledged online booking has not commenced across the country and only limited number of theatres have started selling tickets in advance. In the Hindi-speaking regions, the distributors and exhibitors are yet to agree upon certain conditions and one among them is about signing 'Minimum Guarantee Clause'.

After suffering huge losses from Aamir Khan's Thugs of Hindostan, exhibitors have turned cautious about signing agreements which has now affected the pre-sales of the Shankar-directorial film. 

It is not just in the Hindi belt, but the response seems to be lesser than usual for a Rajinikanth film in South India. Going by the response on online ticketing booking website, Book My Show, the usual craze around the superstar's film is missing.

Usually, there used to be a lot of hysteria around Rajini movies in South India, especially in cities like Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru and exhibitors used to sell out all tickets almost two days ahead of their release. Based on demand, they had the practise of increasing the number of shows/screens.

The below screenshot taken by Book My Show clearly indicates that there are plenty of tickets available for the 2D version across Bengaluru. 

Further, the number of shows on Book My Show is lesser by any standard for a movie which has two big names – Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar – in the cast.  

Rajini's previous movie Kaala, which ran into trouble with pro-Kannada groups and could not see a full-fledged release, had over 250+ shows even on its second day in Bengaluru.

"The tickets for the fans' show has been completely sold. The response is good so far although the tickets have not been completely sold out yet," a representative from leading theatre in Bengaluru, Urvashi told International Business Times.

The situation is apparently similar in Hyderabad and Chennai. However, the industry hopes that the ticket sales will improve in the next two days. Listing out the factors for the low sales, a trade tracker says, "It is not bad, but could have been better. The major reason why the ticket sales are not up to the usual standards might be because it is a normal working day. The footfalls will be excellent from Friday to Sunday," a trade tracker opines.  

Many are bombarding Book My Show with a lot of enquires related to the advance booking on Twitter and the website's standard response is, "Hey, we totally get your excitement to see the new version of our superstar Rajnikanth. As soon as the cinemas open bookings, you shall be able to grab your tickets on BookMyShow. Ideally, the bookings shall open in a day or two. Stay tuned.--MB. [sic]"