Highlights
- Kabali is the highest grossing Tamil film
- It also stars Radhika Apte
- The film is set to have a sequel
A Singapore start-up co-founded by five Indian-origin persons is cashing in on one of India's latest box-office hit,
Kabali, by selling figurines of the film's lead
character played by actor Rajinikanth.
About 85 percent of the
40,000 figurines produced by Carbon Copy Collectibles have been sold since sales began in mid-June for the global market, The Straits Times reported on Wednesday.
The company, founded by five Singaporeans of Indian origin, was selected by
Kabali's global publicity campaigner, Chennai-based production house, V Creations, to make and sell figurines of 'Kabaleeswaran,' a character portrayed by 65 year-old Rajinikanth.
Each polyvinyl figurine, 16.5 cm tall and weighing 300g, is being sold for SGD 39.90 in Singapore.
E-commerce giant Amazon has bought the
Kabali figurines
for the Indian market while it is being sold in Malaysia through Madura Stores, a local retail outlet for Indian products.
"We are the pioneers of collectibles in the Indian cinema industry," said 29 year-old Suraen Ramdass, one of the founders of Carbon Copy Collectibles which started in June 2015.
The idea came from Hollywood film companies which have a culture of figurine collectibles of famous characters including
Iron Man and
Batman, according to the report.
Carbon Copy Collectibles has made and sold figurines of two other Indian film characters in Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates.
The first was 2,000 pieces of 'Manik Baasha,' a character from a 20 year-old movie, manufactured in December 2015.
The second was 2,000 pieces of a character from 1992 movie
Thevar Magan which were released in March this year.
"Both (the figurines) were sold out in 1-1/2 months of release," added 25 year-old Kumaresh Bala, one of the founders.
The other founders are 27 year-old Dhivya Subramaniam, and 29 year-olds Prakash Ramdas and Ganeshan Lingam.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)