2.0 Release date Controversy : Yesterday Lyca Productions in it’s Official statement announces Robo 2.0 worldwide release date as April 27, 2018. That came as a rude shock to two Telugu film makers who are planning to release their movies on that date. It is going to impact the films Bunny’s Naa Peru Surya (NPS) and Mahesh’s Bharat Anu Nenu (BAN). Incidentally, the makers of BAN and NPS have an ongoing scuffle regarding the same release date.
NPS vs BAN : Initially Allu Arjun’s NPS movie, jointly produced by Bunny Vasu and Sridhar Lagadapati, was planned to be released on April 27th. They announced that date on the day the film started rolling. But Mahesh’s Bharath Anu Nenu ( BAN ) movie, directed by Koratala and produced by Danayya, that was originally planned for Sankranthi 2018 release got postponed for various reasons and they announced release date also April’27th 2018. . In industry it has been a norm from last few years that makers are coordinating among themselves to avoid clashing of movies. But BAN movie makers unilateral announcement irritated NPS makers as well as Allu Arjun. Later, there were some discussions are on between these two movie makers to find an amicable solution. But now, both of these guys got a shocker from Rajini-Shankar’s 2.0 movie
Danayya’s foul cry now: Seems this annoyed Danayya, producer of BAN and he tweeted from the official twitter handler as: “Tollywood has always respected and embraced other language cinema. But a bigger project like Robo 2.0 changing their release dates has caused confusion among producers. All the Telugu movie producers who are releasing in the months of Apr and May are in discussions to avoid any competition among ourselves. However this sudden announcement by ROBO 2 team to release in the month of April has left all the Telugu releases to further confusion. At this juncture we request the trade bodies to take a conscious call and arrive at an amicable solution“. Danayya’s foul cry on 2.0 and bring out the “regional card” to provoke Telugu audience and to develop sort of antipathy towards Tamil dubbed 2.0 is understandable. But he is the one to answer how he did similar act , similar injustice to Bunny’s NPS movie. May be he thought Koratala is a bigger director compared to debutant Vamsi and so his product might be a better one and so he dared to clash with NPS. He did not bother at that time as he had upperhand. But now with announcement of Shankar’s magnum opus, Danayya is not in a mood to gamble by clashing his movie with such highly anticipated 2.0 movie. Probably now he may understand the pain that NPS makers have gone through. Also, funniest thing here is , he called for trade bodies to intervene to get an amicable solution. Obviously, these are the trade bodies to which gave a deaf ear, when they tried to find “amicable” solution between NPS and BAN movie.
Date is not everything: In 2017, we saw three movies that released in a span of a week – Khaidi150, Gautamiputra and Sathamanam Bhavati – all becoming biggest hits in their career for the stars. So if a pongal season could accommodate all the three movies, summer season also could accomodate 3 movies, or for that matter, even more movies. Then what is the problem? First, the problem is – each of these producers want to grab solely entire holiday advantage. Each of them want to earn nothing less than the maximum potential of their movies. Greediness, isn’t it ?
There were several hit movies that were released in the so-called off season and went on to became industry hits. There were industry hit movies that ran well during cyclones too. So if you have full confidence on your product, why you want the same date? Probably they are not 100% confident. At least that’s the impression they are giving.
Bringing out regional card : Telugu people have never differentiated dubbed or Telugu movies. It’s the content that mattered always for us. These big producers who talk about Telugu pride never hesitate to dub other language films if they get rights for a reasonable price and they belive it will work out for them. These makers fail to understand the pain of other film makers but when they were hit under the belt, they try to make it a universal problem. Also, it is the Tamil makers that should have been worried, not the Telugu makers. Because they poured in hundreds of crores and directly clashing with Telugu big releases will definitely have impact on them too as there will be considerable dent to their collections. But the makers who talk about Telugu pride seem to be insecure about their Telugu product being overtaken by a dubbing movie. Sir, Telugu pride is not in the release date , we should answer with the content of the movie – like Baahubali.
Finally, for the audience, this is all immaterial. They will watch if the film is good. They don’t bother about the release date. They don’t even bother if it is a dubbing movie or direct movie. They don’t bother whether director is debutant or a veteran. Audience only do care about the quality of the film