Vijay's Meral overseas theatrical rights sold for a record price, beats Ajith's Vivegam

The overseas theatrical rights of Vijay's upcoming movie Mersal have been sold for a record price. It has beaten the previous best of Ilayathalapathy and set a new benchmark for him.

The makers have reportedly earned Rs 26 crore from the sale of overseas theatrical rights. His previous best was Rs 18 crore set by Atlee Kumar's Theri. The actor's Bairavaa had fetched around Rs 16 crore from sale of overseas rights for its producer.

The overseas market has witnessed over 44 percent growth for Ilayathalapathy since Theri. His movies have been consistently performing well at international markets over the years. It has to be noted that Theri had grossed about Rs 45 crore overseas.

Fans for Vijay are spread across the globe and his films often do well in overseas centre like Malaysia, the UK, the US and France.

Trade experts are of the opinion that distributors are confident of the success of Mersal, considering that Vijay and Atlee's previous film Theri was a hit at the box office.

Mersal has also beaten Ajith's Vivegam, the overseas rights of which were sold for Rs 18 crore. Vijay's film is now next only to Rajinikanth films.

It is a special movie for many reasons. Mersal marks the 100th movie made by Sri Thendal Films and is releasing in the 25th year of Vijay and music director AR Rahman in the film industry.

Mersal is an emotional action thriller in which Samantha, Kajal Aggarwal and Nithya Menen are the female leads. SJ Suryah plays the villain in the film, which has Vadivelu, Sathyaraj and others in the cast.