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Does RRR Have Reason To Be Scared Of Kashmir Files?
After Bachchhan Paandey last Friday which was totally trounced by The Kashmir Files typhoon, it is now time for S S Rajamouli’s RRR to run scared. Touted as the biggest film of the year with the production budget estimated at Rs 310 crores, RRR at the moment looks like another casualty of the unforeseen success of Vivek Agnihotri’s small-budgeted historic hit.The collections now threaten to touch and perhaps exceed those of Rajamouli’s all-time blockbuster Baahubali.
Early indications are , the RRR collections won’t be anywhere near to repeating history. Let alone rival the success of Baahubali Rajamouli’s RRR seems have generated shockingly low advance-booking interest in North India.
While the South, specially Andhra Pradesh, has generated impressive advance boxoffice queues, in the North , the interest-level for this mammoth project is at the most, cursory.
The main factor for this lackluster welcome to RRR is of course The Kashmir Files which continues to mow down all competition.
Last week Akshay Kumar was served up a bitter lesson on the changing tastes of moviegoing audiences when his crass commercial potboiler Bachchhan Paandey suffered some serious defeats across India. While the exact numbers lost to The Kashmir Files are not known—and chances are the influential producer will ensure that the film is shown as a profit-maker in the final reckoning—the truth about Bachchhan Pandey is , it will be one of Akshay Kumar’s lowest earners in ten years.
RRR seems to be making the same mistake as Bachchhan Paandey. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala paid no heed to warnings about the growing force of Typhoon Kashmir. Rajamouli was also advised to back off. The release of RRR was already delayed by almost two years. What difference would a few more weeks make?
But no. It’s a prestige issue for Bollywood: how can a small film like The Kashmir Files push big movies like Bachchhan Paandey and RRR out of the reckoning?Isski auqat toh dekho!
The low-interest level in RRR is also attributable to the film’s cast. NTR Jr and Ramcharan Teja are not popular names in the Hindi belt. Yes, there is Ajay Devgan and Alia Bhatt in the RRR cast. But everyone knows they feature in cameo roles while the entire focus is on the two Telugu superstars.
If a Pan-India Telugu superstar Prabhas can fail so abysmally with Radhe Shyam, the relatively unknown NTR Jr and Ramcharan Teja have much to fear. Ditto Rajamouli who knows in his heart of hearts that every Telugu film can’t be Baahubali. But it needn’t be a Radhe Shyam either.