After the nationwide success of Kantara and KGF, the Kannada film industry is being looked up to as an industry that has mastered the art of telling even average stories in a stunning manner. But in the last few months, the industry has again gone back to the days when it was irrelevant.
Kannada’s big star hero, Darshan’s latest film, Kranthi, which was dubbed in several languages and was released on January 26, turned out to be an unmitigated disaster at the box office and couldn’t even collect 20 crore share. The industry has now pinned all its hopes on R Chandru’s Kabzaa starring Upendra, Sudeep, Shriya Saran, and Shiv Rajkumar in a cameo.
This was projected as the next big thing in Indian cinema. But its trailer didn’t receive much appreciation, and many called it a poor cousin of KGF.
The film opens today, and the bookings are shockingly poor not only in other languages but also in Kannada itself. Despite being projected as a big pan-India multistarrer movie, the film has not generated enough interest in the audience.
Overseas, the Kabzaa content and KDM also were not delivered on time, and hence the U.S. premieres have been messed up, and the few shows in the US started just around the time when the first show starts in India. Maybe the makers intentionally delayed it to avoid any negative talk coming from the USA.
There were some early reviews from the Hindi version screenings in Mumbai, and they were not very encouraging. We have to wait and see how the normal audience will receive the film.
