Pyramid Saimira sees 250 mln profit from 'Sivaji'

Cinema chain operator Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd. expects about 250 million rupees in cash profit from the first-month screening of the much-awaited Tamil film 'Sivaji' in India, a top official said.

The Tamil language movie, which opened on Friday, stars southern Indian superstar Rajnikanth, 57, and comes with a dubbed version in Telugu language.

Pyramid is distributing the movie in southern India and Malaysia, besides exhibiting it across 678,000 seats a day, Managing Director P.S. Saminathan told Reuters over the phone.

"Going by the response of the audience and the advanced booking, this might run for 100 days also," he said earlier on television.

Saminathan said he expected a revenue of 500 million rupees from screening the movie in India and another 150 million rupees from Malaysia, where it has been booked for three weeks.

The company has invested about 260 million rupees into this film.