MASTER has seen the fifth highest first week collection of all time and this has come with the 50% occupancy rule while all the others had releases in a normal situation. Obviously there will be some theatres which did not adhere to this as demand was there but still capacity would have been far shorter than a normal situation.

The film could probably have had the second highest number for a Tamil film and beaten the 2016 Rajinikanth starrer KABALI if things were normal. 2.0 had an excellent turnout in Hindi circuits so that film will remain the biggest opener for the Tamil industry on all formats for sometime to come.

It is interesting to see that the top two films are still Rajinikanth starrers. The man who became a superstar for the Tamil film industry in 1980 still has the biggest openers forty years later which is simply phenomenal. The other three films are Vijay starrers who has become a superstar over the last few years. But if we take actual value then Rajinikanth will dominate the top ten films with maybe a Kamal Hassan film, INDIAN (1996), among them.

The fact that Rajinikanth is still competing at the top after 40 years of insane superstardom in Tamil Nadu shows true legend status. Rajinikanth has probably been the biggest superstar ever from the South with blind following in Tamil Nadu and solid stardom elsewhere (even in Mumbai and CP and parts of East India he was saleable name in the mid 80's). The next best is probably Chiranjeevi with blind following in Andhra Pradesh and pretty solid in some other areas. 

The younger superstars are huge getting numbers be it Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh but its about how long you sustain and can you push the numbers in other states in the South.

The top five opening week grossers for the Tamil film industry are as follows. These numbers are GROSS as they give better picture due to tax changes in the last few years.

1. 2.0 (2018) - 362 crore 
2. Kabali (2016) - 157 crore
3. Bigil (2019) - 148 crore
4. Sarkar (2018) - 144 crore
5. Master (2021) - 135 crore apprx