Coolie vs War 2 box office: Rajinikanth film creates history, set to make Rs 100 crore even before release
Rajinikanth's Coolie is poised for a historic opening, smashing pre-sale records with over Rs 80 crore in tickets sold worldwide, potentially exceeding Rs 100 crore on its opening day. War 2, starring Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR, initially lagged but gained momentum, especially after the Telugu version's release, anticipating a Rs 25 crore opening in India. Did Coolie beat War 2? Read on!
Both the films, Coolie and War 2 are releasing on same day, August 14. Fans are all set for the biggest box office clash of 2025. One day to go, and movie lovers are gearing up to witness the biggest box office clash of 2025. Lokesh Kanagaraj's Coolie , starring the legendary Rajinikanth, will go head-to-head with the highly anticipated War 2, featuring Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR, on August 14. Both films have generated massive buzz, but current trends suggest Coolie is scripting history at pre-sales and will dominate this Independence Day weekend showdown.
As per Bollywood Hungama and trade analysts, Coolie has already smashed advance booking records worldwide. With over Rs 80 crore worth of tickets sold and more than 1.8 million tickets snapped up before release, the film's pre-sale momentum is unprecedented. Industry experts are forecasting an opening day collection exceeding Rs 100 crore globally, with some optimistic projections reaching Rs 150 crore if the trend continues. This could make Coolie one of the biggest Tamil film openings in history.In North America, Coolie has made remarkable history by becoming the first Tamil film to cross $2 million in premiere pre-sales. The figure has climbed close to $3 million, breaking the previous record set by Rajinikanth's own Kabali in 2016, which stood at $1.9 million.
Domestically, the enthusiasm for Coolie is equally high. In the Telugu-speaking states, ticket sales surged the moment bookings opened, with the film expected to surpass the opening day collection of Jailer's Rs 96.5 crore, marking Rajinikanth's biggest-ever debut. The film also boasts a star-studded cast including Nagarjuna, Upendra, Shruti Haasan, Aamir Khan in a cameo, and Pooja Hegde.
On the other side, War 2 initially experienced a slow start in advance bookings, but the tide turned dramatically after the Telugu version's tickets went live on August 12. Jr NTR's massive fan base drove a surge in sales, with advance collections crossing Rs 9.13 crore so far. Experts predict that the film could open with over Rs25 crore in India alone, especially as positive word of mouth from early viewers is expected to boost the Hindi version's sales in the days following release.The film reportedly minted only Rs 15 crore so far at the worldwide box-office ahead of release.This clash is set against the backdrop of Independence Day weekend. While War 2 enjoys advantages such as a larger number of screens and a family-friendly U/A certificate, Coolie's overwhelming pre-sale numbers and strong overseas performance give it a major edge. With Coolie leading in pre-sales and overseas enthusiasm and War 2 gaining momentum through Jr NTR's fanbase and wide screen presence, moviegoers are in for a thrilling cinematic weekend.
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Directed by giants, starring legends, backed by the biggest banners in town… and yet, they couldn't even deliver a straightforward, by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser? Because there are plentiful problems. And mind you, it has nothing to do with the age-old complaint people usually have with spectacles like these — 'oh, there's no plot.' Mind you again, there's plenty of plot. No death of conflict, no scarcity of characters, no shortage of backstories. In fact, there's so much plot being flung around that all three stars, Rajinikanth (in Coolie), and Hrithik Roshan and Jr. NTR (both in War 2), could've easily bankrolled their next two or three films just from the excess. It's almost funny, frankly, embarrassing, and eventually exasperating (like the films, I won't stick to one tone) to watch twist after twist, and then some more twists, and then a few more for good measure. There's a distinction between being dense and being crowded. 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Which made me genuinely wonder: is this the same Lokesh Kanagaraj who once fused gritty realism with stylized action so effortlessly? It's even more disappointing to see both films lose out on the solid emotional core buried within their stories. Like in most of Kanagaraj's films, Coolie's protagonist, Deva, is also a man scarred by his past, willing to go to any length to protect his people, his makeshift family of coolies. It's a familiar idea, sure, it reflects Baasha in its setup, but in the younger portions of Deva's arc, you can almost glimpse a righteous anger that brings to mind Mani Ratnam's Thalapathi. If only Kanagaraj had stuck to that simple emotional core, and followed it through with a clean screenplay (like he did so brilliantly in Vikram with Kamal Haasan), we might've had a solid winner on our hands. War 2 isn't lacking in conflict either. Writers Sriram Raghavan and Abbas Tyrewala almost carve out a 70s-style masala rivalry between Kabir and Vikram. 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Or perhaps even an announcement, that these bikes might be hinting at…Dhoom 4. While such a conclusion may appear speculative, the sheer volume of unwarranted spectacle, uninterested stars, and undesired post-credit sequences leaves little room for optimism. In the current cinematic landscape, scale has increasingly, and troublingly, become conflated with greatness. The endless pursuit of 'moments' over meaning reflects a widespread aspiration to emulate the cinematic grammar of filmmakers like SS Rajamouli, without the underlying narrative coherence or emotional truth that defines their cinema. Everyone wants to make a 'mass' film, but it also has to be just masala enough. And, everyone's chasing the increasingly hollow buzzword: 'Pan India.' No one seems entirely sure what that term even means anymore. But watching these two films, all I could gather is that the goal is to make films that keep growing bigger: in scale, in casting, in set pieces, so as to trap one more viewer, one more industry, into the fold. The aim seems less about telling a story and more about engineering drama, ensuring there's a highlight every few minutes to keep dwindling attention spans from drifting. So, the larger question that haunted me after both films ended was: how long will we continue indulging in self-replicating vanity projects designed solely to secure more of the same bankroll? At what point will this nostalgia-fuelled capitalism run its course?
