Love Story is underperforming, and how! The Sekhar Kammula directorial opened with a bang but has unfortunately failed to sustain. It begs the question of where did it go wrong, especially in the U.S. market.
While it is true that it is not just the US, Love Story has dropped considerably post the opening weekend. But, in all other territories barring the US, there is a solid excuse. In Andhra Pradesh, there has been a cyclone effect and an ongoing tickets issue. The former was also a issue in Nizam (Hyderabad city) territory, as well.
In the US, there has been no such issue. The people are freely moving outside, and there are no climate-related problems. The reviews, too, have been by and large positive (M9News was lowest among them). Then what happened to Love Story post the fantastic premieres. It has been on a downward trajectory since then. Probably, the mouth talk did not match the most reviews which are positive (Probably why M9News is the most bankable website for Telugu Reviews). So, the movie could not survive after the initial Hungama.
Apart from word of mouth, what also impacted Love Story is the promotions from the U.S. distributors. The distributor is unfamiliar to Telugu films in this case. As a result, he struggled to promote the film well. They seem to have given up after the openings. There were some efforts before release reflected in the pre-sales, but the same mojo was not seen after the release.
With a little bit more push, Love Story might have easily entered into the profit zone. Right now, it is barely crossing the breakeven mark. Love Story, as of now, has collected $ 1.12M. It is hardly anything to celebrate about considering the potential of the market. The US BO (locally) is bouncing back. A real Telugu biggie would show the same. Unfortunately, Love Story didn’t turn out to be that film.
