Tamil superstar films Thalapathy Vijay's Mersal and Thala Ajith's Vivegam are touted to be two of the Rs. 100 crore Tamil grossers of 2017. Mersal, which is still playing in limited screens across the Tamil Nadu emerges the fifth South film to cross the Rs. 250 crore mark at the Box Office worldwide whereas Thala Ajith's August release Vivegam's worldwide collections are said to be Rs. 112 crore.
While Mersal emerges the biggest Tamil hit of 2017, Vivegam turned out to be the second biggest disaster of the year after Mahesh Babu's SPYder.
Interestingly, a few section of filmmakers were frustrated with the record breaking success of Mersal. In fact, Actor and propaganda secretary of the BJP, S Ve Shekher stated that Mersal suffered a loss of Rs 60 crore.
However, S. Sridhar, joint secretary of the Tamil Nadu Theatre Owners Association had revealed that Mersal is a profitable venture all over Tamil Nadu. He also added that Vivegam incurred around 40-50% loss in Tamil Nadu alone.
"Mersal is a profitable venture all over Tamil Nadu. But Vivegam is a losing venture as it incurred a loss of 40-50% alone in Tamil Nadu. Since Thala Ajith was not available, we have contacted his Pro Suresh Chandra about the losses and we are still waiting to receive a proper reply from them", S. Sridhar.