The big question on most Tamil movie lovers’ minds must surely be whether Ajith’s Billa is a Flop, Ultimate Flop or a Super Hit at the box office.

There has been a lot of comparison between the new Billa and Rajnikant’s mega hit Sivaji with some over-enthusiastic folks erroneously claiming that Billa made Rs 25 crore (about $6.25 million) in just the first five days. What baloney!

The skeptics may question whether Billa has lived up to its hype.

Compared to Sivaji, we just did not witness the same high enthusiasm-level for Billa inside the movie hall even on the first day before, during or after the movie.

There’s also not the same all-round buzz about Ajith’s Billa that one noticed with Sivaji.

But that’s no surprise. After all, Ajith is just a poor man’s Rajnikant. You can’t compare the glorious Sun to a Philips 40w bulb.

Ajith lacks the stature, skills and charisma of Tamil Nadu’s sole superstar - Rajnikant.

What Shahrukh Khan is to Bollywood, Rajnikant is to Tamil movies after multiplying by 100.

Besides the enthusiasm and buzz issues around Billa, other disturbing questions crop up.

New Jersey, New York and Virginia have a fairly large Tamil population. So, why is Billa not running in the New Jersey/New York or Virginia Indian pockets anymore?

Surely, if Billa had proved popular with audiences wouldn’t the movie have run longer at these theaters just like in the Bay Area?

We have seen some comments on Vijay fans’ sites that Billa is a flop. But can we give credence to such reports? Probably not.

In any case, Ajith’s fans would certainly describe the new Billa as a phenomenal success while fans of rival actors like Vijay and Surya would tend to downplay its performance at the box office.

Of course, if Billa does turn out to be a flop or even an ultimate flop we won’t be surprised. And much of the blame would and should rest at Ajith’s feet for doing such a bloody awful job in Billa.

Even after acting in nearly four dozen movies, Ajith Kumar seems to struggle to come to grips with the basics of acting.

We thought the young boy Darsheel Safary, who played a dyslectic kid in Aamir Khan’s new movie Taare Zameen Par, did a far superior job than Ajith by orders of magnitude.

Of course, the 11-year-old kid must have worked much harder than the 36-year-old Ajith.

Besides Ajith’s ham-handed attempts at acting, the new Billa also suffers from a poor screenplay and has the ugly feel of a rush job not a slick job.

Hey, notwithstanding all its weaknesses Ajith’s Billa may even turn out to be a super hit. Who knows.

Like millions of Tamil movie fans, we would love to know the real fate of Billa at the box office.

Of course, in the absence of independent and reliable third party box office data it’s difficult for us to conclusively answer the question - whether Billa is a Flop, Ultimate Flop or a Super Hit at the box office. 

Ultimately we suppose only the distributors would have the hard data on the fate of Billa and its talentless Ultimate Star Ajith.