The News Minute| December 20, 2014| 02.15 pm ISTJust a week after a grand opening, it seems some distributors and theatre owners have slowly begun voicing their displeasure about Rajinikanth-starrer Lingaa’s alleged poor show in theatres.Released on December 12, murmurs have surfaced that some theatre owners have demanded compensation for heavy losses from Rajinikanth. Some of them had paid money to the tune of Rs. 14 crore to buy the film’s rights.That’s not all.There has been much criticism and critical reviews about the movie.Now, both Lingaa director KS Ravikumar and Rajinikanth’s fan club have started a counter offensive and strongly criticized distributors, critics.In an interview with The Hindu Tamil , KS Ravikumar questioned the compensation when he said that distributors alleged collection of only Rs. 4 crore out of the total Rs. 8 crore spent. “This they say on the fourth day of the movie’s release,” he said.“So have they stopped the film? Is it not going to run?,” he asked.According to FirstPost, a distributor in a YouTube video (since then removed) said that the film could not collect even 20 per cent of the entire investment. The movie date released to coincide with Rajinikanth’s birthday was also considered a bad strategy since it was the examination season.Discussing the reasons for the distributors’ demands, Ravikumar also said that considering that the examination season clashed with the movie’s release, and the fact that almost all theatres in the city were running the same movie, he questioned how distributors could expect all theatres to run full.He also pointed out that distributor rights change hands a lot with each distributor charging different rates for the movie.When his home production, Baba, tanked at the box office, Rajinikanth was hailed for his “unprecedented and historic gesture” for refunding crores of rupees to exhibitors and distributors for compensating all their losses. Similarly, when his 2008 movie Kuselan, flopped, he ensured that distributors were returned Rs 7 crore as compensation for the theatres to make up their losses.However, Ravikumar dismissing any necessity for the superstar to repeat his magnanimous gesture said, “Rajini Sir also has taken a salary. If it atleast was his own movie there would have been some truth in asking him ,” he said about the move by distributors demanding compensation from the actor. Lingaa was produced by Rockline Venkatesh.Even if they needed to demand compensation, atleast they could have waited for 100 days, he said. When the movie is going to be taken off at the end of 100 days, it makes sense to ask that, he said.In a comeback against all the criticism the movie and the superstar has been facing , a Rajinikanth fan page released a video on Facebook addressing the film’s ‘losses and the Seeman issue amongst other subjects.In a mashup of clips featuring reviewers criticizing the film along with contextually-related famous punch dialogues by Rajinikanth, the video targets all of Rajini’s criticizers.Tweet