Today’s BIG release: Rajinikanth’s Kochadaiiyaan

Rajinikanth fans, rejoice – the much-delayed Kochadaiiyaan, an animated film using motion capture, is finally here. Directed by Rajini’s daughter Soundarya R Ashwin, Kochadaiiyaan is expected to release across 6000 screens worldwide and in multiple languages. Down South, shows begin as early as 4am in certain theatres. That’s a Rajinikanth Friday.

This is the first ‘Rajini-release’ in almost four years and the first one after his long hospitalisation in 2011. The animated Rajinikanth, playing a triple role, will perform his usual gravity and death defying feats and will also be doing a Shiva Thandava for the first time. The film also stars Deepika Padukone, Jackie Shroff, Shobana, Nassar and R Sarathkumar in key roles. The music is by A R Rahman.

Blockbuster Friday also offers Tiger Shroff’s Heropanti and X-Men: Days Of Future Past from Bollywood and Hollywood respectively.

Kochadaiiyaan’s delayed release date means that Tiger Shroff will go head to head with father Jackie in debut film Heropanti, co-starring newbie Kriti Sanon. The film has grabbed some attention courtesy Tiger’s shirtless dancing and martial arts.

In X-Men: Days Of The Future Past, we finally have a meeting point of the two X-Men franchises – the original X-Men trilogy and the series beginning with X-Men: First Class. This outing involves time travel and features Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine bridging the gap between the younger mutants – James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender – and the older gang of Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Ellen Page. The film also introduces mutants Bishop and Quicksilver. Game Of Thrones star Peter Dinklage appears as the villain Bolivar Trask.