Chennai, July 18: An airline has painted some of its planes with images of the movie's hero. A district collector has offered free tickets of the film if villagers sign a form undertaking to build toilets at their homes.

Even five-star hotels have caught the fever as Tamil superhero Rajinikanth's latest, Kabali, gears to release on Friday, July 22.

Four top hotels in Bangalore will in a never-before initiative screen the film in their banquet halls, holding four shows a day for the first three days following its release.

All this frenzy has scared some like Chennai's milk vendors. They have appealed to fans not to loot sachets from their booths to pour milk on the hero's cut-outs - a release-day ritual for movies featuring superstars that they fear might go out of hand this week.

Enough to make onions cry, as a Rajinikanth joke might say.

" Kabali will set a record for a non-Hindi film. We expect it to do a gross business of Rs 400 crore worldwide," the film's producer S. Thanu said.

Kabali, a Tamil film also dubbed in Telugu and Hindi, will release across 2,500 screens in India and another 1,500 in other countries and regions, including the US, Canada, Britain, Southeast Asia and West Asia.

In America, it's being released across 445 screens, the highest ever for any south Indian movie.

Air Asia, the film's airline partner, has painted two of its aircraft with Rajinikanth's visage from Kabali to attract low-cost fliers to its routes between Chennai, Bangalore and Southeast Asia.

When Puducherry district collector P. Jawahar discovered that 447 of the 772 houses in Sellipet village lacked toilets, he came up with his Kabali incentive, drawing praise from lieutenant governor Kiran Bedi.

Jawahar, who has since been transferred as local administration secretary, clarified that the incentive won't cost the taxpayer. "I'm talking to two theatres to release 200 free tickets during the first week," he said.

Chennai's milk vendors view Kabali as a grim disincentive, though.

"With every TV channel seeking its 'exclusive coverage', the fans will simply continue the paal abishekam (milk shower) throughout the day, causing losses for retail vendors and creating a shortage," state Milk Dealer's Welfare Association president A. Ponnusamy complained.

In Bangalore, JW Marriott, Lalit Ashok, Royal Orchid and Crown Plaza will fit their banquet halls with the Dolby Atmos audio technology to screen the movie.

"It will be the first such venture in India," Anand G, director of Lahari Music who is behind the idea, told The Telegraph.

"Apart from some film festival shows, I don't know if any movie has ever released in five-star hotels anywhere in the world."

Each venue will accommodate 300 seats, and the tickets will cost Rs 1,300 each. Multiplexes in Bangalore, which ordinarily charge Rs 150-200 for a ticket, have raised the price to Rs 400-500 for Kabali.

Rajinikanth, 65, himself has been away from it all, leaving the country after completing the shooting and the dubbing more than three months ago.

His invisibility ended today, though, when his daughter Aishwaryaa R. Dhanush tweeted a picture of her father praying at the Sri Venkateswara Lotus Temple in the ashram of his guru, Swami Satchidananda, at Yogaville in the US state of Virginia.

Rajinikanth is in America for medical treatment and is expected to watch the movie with a select audience in the US.

Back home, his fans will be celebrating Kabali with more than the usual fervour since the last two Rajinikanth films had flopped miserably.

Searching for a hit, Rajinikanth had picked new-age director Pa. Ranjith, whose last film Madras portrayed the street politics of north Chennai. Ranjith got Rajinikanth to play his age in his role of a don on a comeback trail after his enemies got him jailed for backing the cause of migrant Tamils in Malaysia.

Nearly half the movie, which also features Radhika Apte and Taiwanese actor Winston Chao, was shot in Malaysia.

Industry sources said that Ranjith, a Dalit, had woven in some dialogues criticising upper caste oppression but Rajinikanth had those scenes removed, arguing that none of his films ever carried caste overtones.

Still, Dalit youths and outfits are holding up the song Neruppuda, Nerungudaa, Mudiyuma (I am fire, can you come near me) as an expression of their anger.

The film's promoters, however, have pitched the song as an evocation of Rajinikanth's status as the unchallenged king of Tamil cinema.

In Bangalore, his fans are gearing for the release with their customary charity work that has become a precursor to every Rajinikanth movie.

"We just completed three rounds of charity donations to orphanages, old-age homes and slums," said "Rajini" Murugan, president of Rajini Seva Samiti, a fan club.

"It's a great feeling that Kabali is receiving a response that even James Bond films don't," said Murugan, who has adopted for himself a shortened version of his favourite star's name as a mark of respect.

Rajinikanth has a huge fan following in Bangalore, where he worked as a bus conductor before shifting base to Chennai when his film career took off in the early 1970s.

In the run-up to the release, the Kerala-based non-banking finance company Muthoot Fincorp has rolled out Kabali silver coins weighing five to 20 grams and priced between Rs 300 and Rs 1,400.

Merchandises like mugs and tees have been flying off the shelves for some weeks now.

Chennai-based trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai explained the hype over the film.

"The producer and the distributors have made their money. It's now up to the theatre owners to see some brisk business," he said.

"A lot rides on Kabali because only eight among the 107 Tamil films released in the first six months of this year have been profitable."