Ajith’s Thunivu or Vijay’s Varisu? The Pongal 2023 Battle is On

Ramkumar became a Vijay fan after watching the action film Ghilli (2004), but it was not until Sura (2010) that he decided to become a member of one of Tamil star Vijay’s innumerable fan associations. Also an action film, Sura received bad reviews and was a big flop. “There will be many who stand with you when you’re successful, but not many when you face defeat. I wanted to prove my loyalty to Vijay by becoming a member when he faced failure,” said Ramkumar. Ramkumar, 30, runs a small mobile shop in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. He has over 113k followers on his Twitter handle, most of them fellow Vijay fans. 

He’s among the many ardent fans of the star who are looking forward to the ultimate Kollywood box office clash during Pongal 2023 – Vijay’s Varisu Vs Ajith’s Thunivu. The last time the two stars went up against each other was eight years ago, when Vijay’s Jilla and Ajith’s Veeram released for Pongal 2014. In 10 days, Veeram collected around Rs 34 crore from the Tamil Nadu box office while Jilla collected a slightly lower sum of Rs 32 crore. In the rest of India and worldwide, Jilla is said to have been ahead of Veeram. Both films claimed that they’d made a total of about Rs 85 crore. 

Vijay, son of director SA Chandrasekhar, appeared as a child star in a few films before making his debut as the lead in Naalaiya Theerpu (1992). His closest rival in the Tamil film industry, Ajith, made his debut the following year with Amaravathi (1993). It was the early Nineties and the biggest question being asked in the Tamil film industry was who would be the next Superstar, the title reserved for Rajinikanth. Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, the two big stars of the previous generation, were pitted against each other but their career trajectories were defined by their approach to cinema. While Rajinikanth banked on his unique style and punch dialogues to establish his stardom, Kamal Haasan sought versatile, diverse roles and genres, often taking risks at the box office. 

Ajith and Vijay vied for the position that Rajinikanth occupied – larger-than-life, commercial cinema with a god-like hero at its heart. “Kamal Haasan was a star but he was interested in cinema as an artform, beyond his stardom. But both Ajith and Vijay wished to emulate what Rajinikanth achieved. They wanted to be commercial stars. In fact, Ajith even declared at one point that he will be the next superstar,” said journalist Gopalakrishnan Sankaranarayanan, a movie buff with a soft corner for Ajith. 

Interestingly, after his debut with Amaravathi (1993), Ajith took a break from cinema and pursued his other passion – auto racing. However, he was injured and bed-ridden for 18 months following an accident. After recovery, he had to play supporting roles before he made a comeback as the lead with Aasai (1995), a romantic thriller. His Kadhal Kottai (1996), a love story between two people who fall in love through letters, was another hit. But the biggest turning point in his career came with SJ Suryah’s thriller Vaalee (1999), in which he played dual roles – hero and villain. Ajith’s portrayal of a deaf-mute man who desires his brother’s wife won him critical acclaim.

“That was the first time I was playing a dual role and I received a lot of bad publicity initially. People said it was too early for Ajith to do a double role and the film would never get released. There was a lot of scepticism,” said Ajith in an old interview.

It was with AR Mugadoss’s action film Dheena (2001) that Ajith became ‘Thala’ (the head/leader), a moniker that his fans celebrated for 20 years. In 2021, however, Ajith asked them to stop calling him by any titles, stating that he prefers to be known just by his name. A decade before this, he had dissolved all his fan clubs, reportedly disheartened by fans using his name in inappropriate contexts. He has also taken a stance against online fan abuse though he isn’t on any social media platforms. Still, there are rumbles within the industry about his inaccessibility and unwillingness to promote his own films.

In contrast, Vijay has embraced his stardom and is in no hurry to walk away from it. Vijay’s name was prefixed with the title ‘Ilaya Thalapathy’ (the young commander) in his father’s directorial Rasigan (1994). Though the romantic action film received negative reviews, the moniker stuck. It was no coincidence that ‘Thalapathy’ was also the title of Rajinikanth’s superhit film with Mani Ratnam that released in 1991, just a year before Vijay’s debut. It was Mersal director Atlee who dropped ‘ilaya’ from the title in 2017, when Vijay was 43, and he came to be known as simply ‘Thalapathy’. Unlike Ajith, Vijay is on social media (though not very active) and nurtures his fanclubs. The actor is said to have political ambitions, and may mobilise his fanclubs in future for campaigns. 

“Though Ajith and Vijay did similar films, the image they projected was quite different,” said Sankaranarayanan. “Ajith was always talked about as a gentleman, someone who is kind and decent. He won over a lot of fans by his off screen image. Vijay, on the other hand, was loved by people for his ability to entertain, be it comedy or dance. He was particular about doing films that would entertain all kinds of people – like Thuppakki (2010), Kaththi (2014) and so on. He has also worked hard to stay fit across decades.”

Sankaranarayanan added that Ajith’s disengagement from the film industry and star culture was welcomed by many earlier, but it is now perceived as a lack of interest. Unlike Vijay who still makes an effort to look young on screen, Ajith sports grey hair and doesn’t transform himself physically to suit a role. His fans claim that this is because of the several surgeries he has undergone, thanks to his interest in car and bike racing. The general public, however, isn’t so forgiving and views it as a sign of taking the audience for granted.

Over the years, Vijay’s market outside Tamil Nadu has grown tremendously while Ajith’s reach remains limited to Tamil Nadu. For instance, Vijay’s action film Beast (2022) got the highest opening for a Tamil film at the Kerala box office in 2022, earning over Rs 6 crore. Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Vikram (2022) and Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan I (2022), both multi starrers with massive expectations riding on them, emerged second and third with Rs 5 crore and Rs 3 crore respectively. This was despite Beast clashing with the pan India juggernaut KGF: 2 that released a day later. Advance bookings in the Kerala box office were, however, lacklustre for Ajith’s Valimai (2022).

“Beast received negative reviews but it still made money at the box office. Vijay is a star who can guarantee a certain minimum level of success at the box office, and this is a fact that several people have attested to in the past,” said Ramkumar, adding that he viewed the upcoming box office clash as “healthy competition”. 

Sankaranarayanan, however, isn’t too enthralled with bad films making good money, be it Vijay’s film or Ajith’s. “Both the stars should focus on selecting good scripts. I don’t know what’s there to celebrate when a bad film becomes a box office hit. We’re at a time when someone like Kamal Haasan is doing a multi-starrer film (Vikram) but these two won’t consider working together. They should move out of that mindset of doing only one kind of cinema,” he said.

Ramkumar pointed out that very few stars can experiment once they reach the heights that Vijay and Ajith have. Ajith’s Nerkonda Paarvai (2019), for example, didn’t do as well as Viswasam (2019) that released the same year. Nerkonda Paarvai was a mostly faithful remake of the Hindi film Pink (2016) that featured Ajith as a lawyer who takes up a sexual assault case. It had a few “mass” scenes to please his fans but it was a serious courtroom drama on a sensitive subject. Viswasam, on the other hand, was a “mass” action film with some family drama thrown in. Meanwhile, the maximum that Vijay has allowed himself to move away from the upright “mass” hero in recent years is in Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Master (2021), where he played a professor with an alcohol problem. He has been more conservative than Ajith when it comes to picking roles and scripts.

Over the years, the two stars may have changed and evolved in how they see their rivalry. Their fans, however, are known for fighting bitterly on social media, trending abusive hashtags and attacking people who say they didn’t enjoy a film headlined by their favourite star. Ramkumar, in fact, has been part of such abusive campaigns in the past and has even been arrested for it – a fact that he now deeply regrets. “I was young and foolish. Many of us back then were so passionate that we didn’t have the sense to see that it was wrong. We’re older and wiser now,” he said. 

The rivalry among fans, however, has certainly helped the two stars maintain their demi-god status in Tamil Nadu. “It’s difficult to criticise either of them without being labelled as a fan of the other star, someone with an agenda. This makes it hard for people to say anything about these stars in public forums or even social media to an extent. The fan wars definitely help them stay in that exalted position,” said Sankaranarayanan. But, he added, it is unlikely that after Vijay and Ajith, there will be such intense fan rivalry in Kollywood.

Ramkumar agrees that the fan wars are an important component of stardom. “The previous generation used to fight over Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, and it was then Vijay and Ajith for us. The fan wars happen out of a sense of ownership fans have over their favourite star. So, they take it personally when the star is insulted. The competition keeps the battle alive for us,” he said. 

Vijay’s Varisu is helmed by director Vamshi Paidipally while Ajith’s Thunivu is directed by H Vinoth. This is undoubtedly the biggest clash that Kollywood has witnessed in years, and one can expect fan frenzy to go through the roof as we get closer to the release date in January. It’s also a great start for the trade in 2023, a momentum that theatre owners, distributors and producers will hope to retain for the rest of the year. Who will be crowned king at the end of it? That’s a wait and watch game, and for a neutral viewer, all bets are off.