Popular faces, renowned directors, and big budgets can’t assure the success of a film these days. This has been proved by a string of failures in Tollywood after the smashing success of ‘Pushpa’ and ‘RRR’. The last four months saw several eagerly awaited movies hitting the screen but leaving S.S. Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’, others either flopped at the box office or recorded average success.
Flop Telugu Films
A notable superstar’s film is always met with high expectations and excitement. Sometimes it goes on to become a big hit at the box office and other times it fails to impress. Despite having a great promotion campaign, some films can’t seem to draw in the audiences and end up performing poorly at the box office. Here’s a list of movies that were expected to be blockbusters, after Pushpa and RRR, at the box office but failed or recorded average success.
‘Acharya’
It is no doubt that Chiranjeevi is the biggest name in Tollywood. Despite this fact, his film could not guarantee a great opening for ‘Acharya’. The movie also starring Ram Charan, was directed by Koratala Siva. It was released on April 29 to a dull response at the box office. Negative reviews saw a massive drop in the movie’s collection in the first four days. It disappointed even in Telugu states.
‘Acharya’ was made with a whopping budget of Rs 140 crore but the film grossed only Rs 63.5 crore worldwide in its first weekend. Now the trade analysts believe that Acharya’s business may end within this week.
‘Bangarraju’
Earlier, this year ‘Bangarraju’, the second famous father-son duo, starring Nagarjuna and his son Naga Chaitanya came as a bummer. While their fans were excited to see them together on the screen, this could not save the movie based on a pale script of an unnatural drama.
Sadly, ‘Bangarraju’ could gross only Rs 60 crore worldwide despite the hype around the father-son duo.
‘Radhe Shyam’
Another big tragedy this year is ‘Radhe Shyam’ starring Pan India star Prabhas in the lead. The multi-lingual romantic drama failed to impress the crowd.
The movie had a budget of a whopping Rs 350 crore and could gross Rs 144 crore worldwide from all languages combined at the end of its theatrical run. Despite stunning visuals, grand outdoors, visual effects, romance, and good music, the movie flopped due to a boring story.
‘Bheemla Nayak’
‘Bheemla Nayak’ starring Pawan Kalyan and ‘Baahubali’ fame Rana Daggubati was another much-anticipated movie to hit the screens in February.
It was a Telugu remake of ‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ (2020), a Malayalam language action thriller. Unlike ‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’, which was about a clash of egos between two men, it was Pawan Kalyan who dominated ‘Bheemla Nayak’. Bheemla Nayak did a business of Rs 158.5 crore worldwide. This movie had an average success.
‘Khiladi’
Ravi Teja’s ‘Khiladi’ turned out to be a failure after it was released in theaters along with a Hindi dubbed version on February 11. Written and directed by Ramesh Varma, this movie could gross Rs 23.5 crore worldwide though the film’s budget was estimated to be Rs 40 crore.
Industry analyst’s assumption
All in all, Industry analysts say the poor script is the main reason for many Telugu films flopping at the box office after the grand success of ‘Pushpa’.
“The strength of the script makes a film successful. If somebody comes with a weak and dull script, automatically the film flops. No matter how big a star is and how good a director is, it all depends on the strength of the writing. Nobody can save a film if the script is poor,” says film analyst Prabhu.
He, however, adds that a subject a filmmaker prefers is not the entire story. “Whatever line you take, it needs to have some interesting scenes. 10-15 interesting scenes promote a movie. Lack of strength in the scenes is the main cause of failure. There are no other reasons because the filmmaking standards are very high, wonderful, and far ahead,” he said.
He further says that one can’t blame artists for a film’s failure as all stars are established, artists. It all depends on the script and character an artist gets.
“We can’t blame artists. The actor is like water which takes the shape of a vessel. It all depends on the capability of the director, how best he molds the character and how best he creates interest in the character,” he said.
According to Prabhu, even ‘Pushpa’ did not have a great script but the way Allu Arjun instilled the strength, the density of character, a rough and tough wild character, and his mannerism helped. “This film has highlighted the smuggler’s character and glorified it. This shows the film does well even if the bad character is portrayed in an intensive and interesting manner,” he added.
