Rajinikanth and Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Coolie was released in theatres during the Independence Day weekend. Now, upon its world television premiere, the movie was re-censored, but the makers had already lost some box office revenue by not doing that earlier.
In theatres, Coolie received below-average reviews and mixed word of mouth. However, thanks to the strong combination of Rajinikanth and Lokesh Kanagaraj, the film managed to gather decent box office numbers, collecting around ₹520 crore worldwide.
Apart from the content, the movie’s “A” certificate also affected its revenue. Coolie could have earned an additional ₹20–25 crore in India if it had received a U/A certificate.
The team could have easily applied for re-censorship to trim or replace a few scenes and get a U/A rating, but they chose not to. Instead, they even used the “A” certificate as part of their promotional campaign, leading audiences to expect an extremely violent film from Lokesh Kanagaraj. However, the actual content turned out to be quite different.
Recently, Coolie was re-censored for television, and its world TV premiere took place this Diwali on Sun TV. The new version received a U/A certificate, with about three minutes trimmed from the runtime.
In hindsight, the makers missed an opportunity: had they gone for re-censorship before the theatrical release, Coolie might have earned more revenue.