Dravidianist actor Suriya’s career continues to nosedive—and this time, it’s Retro digging him a deeper hole. Once a bankable star, the Dravidianist poster boy seems more interested in riding on the coattails of established directors than actually acting. The result? One flop after another. Instead of picking solid stories, he’s busy chasing names, and it’s clearly not working.
According to industry tracker Sacnilk, Retro barely pulled in ₹3.38 crore (India nett) on day five. Despite an okay opening of ₹19.25 crore on 1 May, the film crashed the next day—same old story. Suriya’s previous film Kanguva followed the exact same script an initial ₹24 crore opening, followed by a free fall to ₹9.5 crore on day two—a humiliating 60% drop. Retro did even worse, plummeting 61%.
Theaters showed the damage. Day two of Retro saw average occupancy at just 40.23%, with morning shows scraping together 23% and even night shows barely touching 53%. No buzz, no pull—just another forgettable release. Coming to Day six the movie had only an overall 14.47% morning show Occupancy.
Suriya’s 16-Year Theatrical Dry Spell
Let’s be blunt, Suriya hasn’t delivered a theatrical hit for all audiences since Singam—way back in 2009. That’s 16 years of consistent underperformance. Why? Because he’s stuck in a loop of poor story choices, playing it safe, and refusing to back new talent. He seems to think success is guaranteed if he latches onto already-famous directors—but they’ve only dragged him down.
Take Jigarthanda Double X, for instance—a box office dud that somehow had a “success meet.” Suriya bought the hype and gave director Karthik Subbaraj another shot. The reward? Retro, a cinematic disaster that’s burning money.
And what’s next? A movie based on RJ Balaji’s Masani Amman script. If you think that’s the comeback vehicle, good luck. Or maybe his direct Telugu venture with Venkatesh Atluri will change things? At this point, it’s less about hope and more about blind faith.
Same Old Face, Same Old Flaws
Even on screen, there’s a big problem, Suriya doesn’t become his characters anymore. He just shows up as “Suriya.” That disconnect is killing any chance of audience immersion. The artificiality is obvious—and Tamil audiences have become far too sharp to fall for name alone.
If he wants to survive in this industry, Suriya needs to wake up. Stop recycling directors. Stop betting on tired formulas. Go back to choosing strong, grounded scripts. Play real, relatable characters again—like in Kaakha Kaakha or Vaaranam Aayiram. Until then, all the “2.0” talk is just noise. You can’t reboot a failing career with lazy decisions.
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