Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan’s grand reunion has turned out to be a damp squib. Thug Life, which brought the two mavericks together, and which I found to be an excellent film, threatens to become a box office disaster, probably the biggest dud of the amazing Kamal Haasan’s career.

Several shows of the Tamil film were reported to be cancelled over the weekend. One of them, at the MGF theatre in Gurgaon, cancelled its 3.45 pm show of the Hindi dubbed version of Thug Life on Saturday.

The theatre reported zero attendance.

“It is a shocking state of affairs. I mean Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan are together after more than thirty years… are you kidding me? Is this all they could come up with?” wonders a young upcoming Tamil actor, a diehard fan of Kamal Haasan.

A Tamil-Hindi superstar who hero-worships Kamal Haasan feels betrayed. “And I am not the only one. There are thousands and millions of fans like me who expect much more from Kamal Sir. Coming from a lesser star-actor, Thug Life would not have been so inexcusable. But coming from the combo that gave us Nayakan…”

There were loud murmurs of discontent after the trailer release, especially about the age disparity between Kamal Haasan and his two leading ladies Abhirami and Trisha Krishnan. Then, Karnataka was upset over Kamal Haasan’s comments and the State’s linguistic antecedents and decided to ban Thug Life.

Opines Roshan Singh, a leading film exhibitor of Bihar, “Even if that Karnataka ban had not happened, Thug Life would have suffered the same fate. It was DOA (dead on arrival). Bihar theatres had to cancel shows on Friday, the day after release. This is two duds in a row for Kamal Haasan (after Indian 2). As for Mani Ratnam, he needs to reinvent himself, fast.”