The superstar decade

The superstar decade: 1989-1999
The vast majority of his movies released during the nineties were extremely successful, notably Thalapathy, Mannan, Annamalai, Uzhaippali, Veera, Baasha, Muthu, Arunachalam and Padayappa. Rajinikanth wrote his first screenplay and acted as a special appearance in the film Valli (1993) which however failed to make an impact at the box office. His cult classic Baasha, released in 1995, went on to become a massive blockbuster and is routinely touted by his fans and critics alike as the movie which elevated him from being just another very popular actor with loads of charisma to an almost demigod status in the eyes of the masses. His film Muthu was the first Tamil film to be dubbed into Japanese as Muthu: The Dancing Maharajah and became very popular in Japan. Throughout this decade, Rajinikanth established himself as a box office phenomenon; all of the films mentioned in this era were all formulaic mass entertainers which routinely succeed in box office. It can be argued that it was also during this time that Rajinikanth started to converge with politics, whether that confluence was voluntary or not is debatable, but the objective fact cannot be disputed that as his films began to take on a whole new dimension in terms of expectations, hype and revenue, his political clout also steadily rose with the cinematic tide as well. This trend began with the release of Annamalai in 1992 and arguably climaxed during the time of Padayappa's release in 1999. Being his 150th film, Padayappa, directed by K. S. Ravikumar, undoubtedly turned out to be the largest blockbuster in his career.Indulging in politics: 2002
The new millennium began very well for Rajinikanth; Padayappa had rewritten previous box office records. Finally, after more than a three year sabbatical from cinema, at 52 years of age, he starred in his home production, Baba which released on August 15, 2002 amidst much fanfare and extreme hype. The film was a poor grosser box-office as it had failed miserably to meet the expectations due to a very weak screenplay, which Rajinikanth himself had written, his second stint at screenplay writing after Valli. The thin screenplay revolved around the story about a gangster who later engages in spirituality and when compared to his previous film, Padayappa, it was a colossal disappointment. Although the film grossed enough to cover its budget, it was viewed as a tremendous loss when compared to his previous box office successes throughout his career. It fell short of market expectations and the high bids reportedly translated to heavy losses for the distributors. Rajinikanth himself repaid the losses incurred by the distributors. Rajinikanth thereafter reported that he was to quit acting, hence taking part in social and political activities.