The prestigious biopic on legendary actor NTR turned out to be an epic disaster at box office as both parts failed to draw the attention of audience. When the project was announced last year, there were a lot of expectations in audience and trade circles and Balakrishna himself turned producer with this film. Teja was initially roped in to direct this biopic, but due to personal reasons he backed out in the last minute and director Krish came on board. Krish has completed the film in less than 100 working days and released the film in time. The first part ended as an embarrassing flop despite getting decent reviews from critics. The second part turned out to be a colossal disaster as it failed to recover the theatre expenses in all areas.
So, who is to be blamed for this huge disaster and are the reasons behind for it ?
1) Balakrishna is the first person who is to be blamed for this embarrassment. Rather than making this film as a tribute to his father, he cashed in on the huge pre release buzz in trade circles and sold it for exorbitant prices in all areas. At the rates sold by the producers, the film would never become a hit even if it had got good talk. Balakrishna could have released the film on his own, but he preferred to make money out of this prestigious project. Also, Balakrishna should let go the role of young NTR to some other actor. If he really wanted the film to become a box office hit, he should let go the role of young NTR to some other actor. But, his ego didn’t let him do that. He himself played the character and got criticized for not looking the part as young NTR.
2) Krish should also equally share the blame for the debacle of this project. His lackluster directional skills and hasty research work on the legendary actor are the major reasons for the failure. After Teja’s sudden exit, Krish joined the project and took very little time to do research about NTR. For the biopic on Savitri, the makers of Mahanati did profound research and collected a lot of unknown details from different sources. But, that didn’t happen for NTR biopic. Krish jumped board from Manikarnika and immediately started shooting after making some changes to the script. He finished the shoot in very less time and hardly did any research on NTR’s political journey. There are no unknown facts and details about NTR in this biopic. Krish and his team should have done more efforts to garner information from contemporary politicians and journalists of NTR’s time.
3) Even as a producer, Balakrishna failed to do justice to this biopic. He tried to squeeze the last penny from distributors though the first part turned out to be a huge loss venture. Many of the distributors are NTR fans and they bought the rights even though the producers quoted high prices. The production house didn’t budge an inch even after the first part tanked heavily and tried to sell the second part for hefty prices. Only after the media highlighted the struggle of distributors, Balakrishna has decided to compensate for the losses. Also, the greed for making money out of NTR’s craze has made the producers and director to come up with a two part biopic and this idea has backfired completely. They should have made this as a single film and the result might have been a different one.
4) Another reason why the biopic failed is due to lack of honesty in the story. Some of the important phases of NTR life have been sidelined by Krish and Balakrishna just to fit the agenda. This has resulted in outright rejection from audience.
5) Promotional strategy did more harm than good to this biopic. Krish and his team revealed all important characters much earlier than film’s release and they failed to generate any interest on the big screen. After the first part ended as a flop, the makers were short of plans on how to promote the second part and this has led to poor buzz in audience.
On the whole, all these factors led to the causing of huge embarrassment for such a prestigious project. Balakrishna has failed to make this as a tribute because of his ego as an actor and due to his greed for money as a producer. Director Krish got carried away by the hype and made a cursory research work about the legendary actor only to share the blame for delivering one of the forgettable films in his career.
