There was a time when Rajinikanth could do no wrong. His movies would run for months, his dialogues were repeated like gospel, and no producer dared release another film till a Rajini blockbuster had its run. Compare that to the fate of Lingaa. A month past its release, it is barely visible in cinemas across Chennai. There is no buzz around the film, his character, stunts or his lines. And the unthinkable has happened - barely a month after Lingaa's opening, several producers have released their films. And some of them have even streaked past it at the box office.

Distraught distributors are planning on an indefinite fast next week, demanding that Rajinikanth and the makers of Lingaa help them recover their losses. This disaster, coming on the heels of his last flop, Kochadaiiyaan, has emboldened the Tamil film industry to finally ask a question that would have been considered blasphemous a couple of years ago: is it time the 64-year-old superstar retired or moved into the kind of roles that keep an older star like Amitabh Bachchan relevant in Hindi cinema?

At this point in Rajinikanth's 40-year, 150-film career, it's becoming apparent that without a good script and a sensible distribution and marketing strategy, even a near legend like him cannot succeed. “At the end of Endhiran, Rajinikanth the robot dismantles himself. To me, the actor should have done the same with his career. Called it quits while he was ahead of the game,“ says filmmaker K Hariharan, director of creative sciences at Mahindra Ecole Central, Hyderabad.

Hariharan believes that the superstar doesn't really want to act anymore and is doing so to oblige those he cares for. Kochadaiiyaan was directed by his daughter, Soundarya, so he had to do it. It flopped. And then to make up for the losses, director K S Ravikumar who also handled Kochadaiiyaan was brought into Lingaa - again, the bet didn't pay off.

Lingaa, despite a budget reportedly in excess of Rs 100 crore, was clearly a rush job - it was completed in six months. The special effects were shoddy, the dialogues were bland, and the plot regressed further than the star's hairline (Indian raja versus British collector, fighting to build a dam in a village).

Some filmmakers believe that Rajini should not be written off yet. They say that he is a victim of the overblown hype around him. Distributors, producers and even directors have bought blindly into the myth making, ignoring some basic tenets of the film market. One problem is that filmmakers are so thrilled to have him in their projects that they neglect the storyline and script. As if Rajini's presence alone could prop up a film.

“In recent times, perhaps because of social media or the internet, this whole image of the superstar has grown. People are getting carried away by that and directors give him completely unbelievable characters. They forget to give his character that human touch,“ says Suresh Krissna, who made a hit (Baashha) as well as a flop (Baba) with the star.

In the 80s, when Rajinikanth reigned at the box office, fans would throng theatres, watching a movie more than a dozen times in the first week itself. Theatres would be booked out by fans for the first day-first show, and lakhs would be spent on pujas involving pouring litres of milk on his posters and cut-outs to wish him prosperity.

Little wonder that distributors bet on him blindly. Around 650 theatres across Tamil Nadu screened Lingaa on its first day. But the bad reviews started filing in by the end of the first day, and the audience started thinning out. Many theatres in Chennai dropped the movie in the second week, and several other movies, whose release dates were postponed because of Lingaa, started streaming into theatres. “Five films released hardly two weeks after Lingaa. No one usually dares release so close to a Rajinikanth movie. Clearly, that is not the case anymore,“ says R M Rizwan, a former professor of film studies, who has done a case study on Endhiran and is analyzing Lingaa.

“If people knew the exact formula for Rajinikanth's success, they would all be millionaires,“ says Sadanand Menon, cultural commentator. “To me, an analysis of what made the superstar is really an analysis of his audience. Rajini made his debut in the 1970s when the popularity of the stars of the time - Sivaji and M G Ramachandran - was on the wane,“ says Menon. “There was also a breakdown of the Dravidian identity that was assiduously cultivated in Tamil cinema over three decades.“ He adds that newer directors like K Balachander were making a mark at the time, taking cinema in newer, more diverse directions. With his 'common man' background - Rajini, born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad was a bus conductor in Karnataka before his rebirth as a hero - he knew how to play to his audience.

Though Rajinikanth was initially noticed for his 'baddie' roles in director K Balachander's Moondru Mudichu and Bharathiraaja's 16 Vayadinile, he soon went on to become a rage with his cigarette tricks and stunts. “He went all out, creating a style, giving his audience the paisa vasool they sought from him on screen,“ says Menon.

In other parts of the country, Rajini was known for his screen quirks but with Sivaji the Boss, he became a huge box office draw. People loved his insouciance, and the ability to laugh at himself. That he was no standard hero material was something he constantly took potshots at. He has no qualms appearing in public as he is - a balding, ageing star - because the minute he appeared on the screen he could work magic. But he was always supported by good stories and scripts.

“Making a Rajinikanth movie is a lot of pressure because his movies are watched by a diverse group,“ says Krissna. Some of his fans, says Krissna, have been with him from 1975, when he was a villain. Others joined in when he transformed into a hero, some watch his movies for his trademark style and punch dialogues. There are those who are simply curious about his persona and others who are indifferent movie watchers. “You have to cater to all of them. A number of them still like seeing him as both hero and villain,“ says Krissna.

A point to note perhaps, for the next director willing to bat for the superstar's battered image - to get on the good side of the box office, one may need to get on the bad side of Rajinikanth.

INFLATED PRICE TAG?
Lingaa is not the first time the superstar has failed at the box office but there is a reason why distributors are more upset this time. According to vice-president of the Tamil Film Producers' Council PL Thenappan, Lingaa was sold at unrealistic rates to distributors. He says the distribution rights for a Rajini movie cost 10% more than his last film. If the movie was a flop, say in the case of Baba (2002), the rights for the next movie - in this case Chandramukhi (2005) - were sold for a lower price. But Lingaa, in some areas, was sold at Rs 12 crore, almost double the price of the rights of Rajinikanth's 2010 superhit Endhiran.The disastrous box office showing of his last movie, Kochadaiiyaan, wasn't even taken into consideration