Thalapathy Vijay was last seen on screens in the AR Murugadoss directorial political entertainer Sarkar, costarring Keerthy Suresh, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Pazha Karuppiah and Radharavi, and released on last Diwali, the movie took the biggest opening in Vijay's career and had achieved massive collections.

Vijay has a huge fan base not just in TN but also in Kerala and Karnataka, and even in other countries like France, and his craze was recently witnessed in France. Last year's best footfalls in theaters in France was achieved by Sarkar, and this was announced officially by EOY entertainment which tracks the box office results of Tamil movies in France.

Sarkar was released again on January 27, and even after 83 days of release, more than 200 people thronged to theaters, and had a record number of entries overall. With Theri (2016) having 24827 entries, Mersal (2017) having 32471 entries and Sarkar's 25378 entries, Vijay's movies have been ruling the Kollywood market in France, emerging as the most watched Tamil movies by people there and have made France another stronghold of Vijay.