The very fact that Rajini didn't have to face MGR during his career, but Vijay had to face Rajini including Rajini of his peak, and a vast number of other competitions in by far the most challenging era and still reign it by being No. 1 at the BO, easily makes #Vijay superior. https://twitter.com/murali1311/status/1296851356125286400

He says Vijay should not be called the next superstar.
If you ask me, calling Vijay the next superstar severely understates his achievement.
In the next few tweets, I will explain why I think calling him the next superstar doesn't do justice to his achievement.

Unlike #ThalapathyVijay, Rajini was very lucky to reign in a less challenging era.
He didn't have to face MGR. In contrast to today, people didn't have a dozen options for entertainment in Rajini's era, but just go watch movies in theatres.

Oh, back in the day, there's absolutely no piracy like today. Films in this era are fighting against piracy.
Vijay reigns in an era where you will find every month someone debuts as a hero. While this poses no threat to Vijay, it's to explain how competition is exceedingly high.

The whole thread is based on just one point - number of films Rajini had acted during a time period is HIGH!
So what? Kamal had acted in 51 films in three years (1975-1976) and Vijayakanth had acted in 44 films in three years (1984-1986). https://twitter.com/murali1311/status/1296851366304870400

So it's fair to assume that Vijay also would have acted in more films in such a limited span of time. Fair play to Rajini for doing so, though. I'd absolutely give it to Rajini for the longevity in industry and the consistency he had being at the top in the past.

But how does that actually make Vijay's achievement smaller?
The man has taken less number of movies to surpass Rajini in terms of box office records, star power and overall other records in a short span of time.
Now tell me how many actors of this generation have done that?

Rajini is not a limit nor a benchmark for anyone to set him as a target and chase it. He has built his own empire. Vijay is building his own empire and it's started to tower above Rajini's. Someone may come in the future and try building their own empire. Good luck!

There are still some areas where Vijay has not conquered Rajini yet, like Hindi market and the USA box office. But where Vijay has conquered Rajini today, he did not have most of them some 6 or 7 years ago. It's matter of years from here on for Vijay to round it off.

To put things in perspective, Rajini's highest grosser without Shankar is Kabali which made ₹285 cr. Vijay's highest grosser without Shankar is Bigil which made ₹305 cr.
Rajini's highest grosser with ARM is Darbar - ₹210cr. Vijay's highest grosser with ARM is Sarkar - ₹260 cr

Remember I'm not even starting on Vijay's social media craze and records which remains second to none anyway. When an actor is reigning at the top in a more challenging era, he is already superior than an actor who reigned three quarters in a less challenging era.

When an actor is reigning at the top in a more challenging era, he is already superior to the actor who reigned three-quarters of his career in a less challenging era. That's why I firmly believe calling #Vijay as the next superstar isn't a fair representation of his achievement.