SS Rajamouli is known as the showman of south cinema. The Telugu director has an awesome track record at the box-office, and all top south Indian heroes have expressed a desire to work in his films. The lucky one, Karan Johar has been singing praises of Rajamouli and will be presenting his magnum opus Baahubali in Hindi
Rajamouli is a mass commercial director and in south, he is considered to be on par with Tamil director Shankar for his big budget extravaganzas. The Hyderabad-based director nine hits in a row to his credit, and his last release Eega,which was dubbed in Hindi as Makkhi, garnered record TRPs when it was shown on television.
Now, Rajamouli is all set for the release of his period dram Baahubali, in two parts, and it is said to be the most expensive film in India made on a budget of Rs 250 Crore. Baahubali stars popular Telugu star Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Tamannah and Anushka Shetty in the lead roles besides Ramya Krishnan, Sathyaraj, Nassar, Adivi Sesh, Tanikella Bharani and Sudeep.
Rana Daggubati in Baahubali. Image from Facebook.
It has two national award winning technicians, music director Keeravani and production designer Sabu Cyril. 2000 junior artists, 600 technicians, horses, elephants participated in the shoot which took nearly 450 days to complete. 17 visual effects studios across the world are involved in the making of this film which has been under production for the last three years. Phew.
Baahubali –The Beginning, part 1 releases this Friday ( July 10) worldwide, and part 2 is scheduled for release early next year. The film will release in 4,000 screens worldwide in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam. Baahubali has been compared with Hollywood period films such as Ben-Hur,Gladiator, 300 and Troy.
In an interview with First Post, SS Rajamouli spoke about his aspirational porject. “One of the biggest inspirations behind Baahubali is Mahabharata. The epic war drama between the Pandavas and Kauravas has always fascinated me, along with Amar Chitra Katha comics. My father, a writer himself, introduced me to these comics at a young age. I love fantasy and mythology, and that is always an undercurrent in all my films.”
Some of SS Rajamouli's Telugu films have been remade in Hindi such as Son of Sardaar (Maryada Ramanna) andRowdy Rathore (Vikramarkudu), and these films went on to become blockbusters. Films like Magadheera and Makkhi, which were dubbed in Hindi, achieved impressive TRPs for television. Rajamouli has always wanted to go national, to get that reach and penetration into Hindi speaking audiences as well, to be known as India’s biggest showman.
Tamil director Shankar's Rajinikanth film Robot (Endhiran in Tamil) is said to have garnered a distributor’s share of Rs 26 crore -- the highest for a south Indian film from North India. Now the big question being asked in the trade is whether Baahubali in Hindi can beat the record set by Robot ?
Rajamouli's friend and partner-producer Shobu Yarlagadda (from Arka Media) has been able to sell Baahubali much before release. The market buzz is that they have pre-sold the film for its respective Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam versions. They have also managed to rope in Karan Johar to market the Hindi version, through his Dharma Productions and also in partnership with leading distributor Anil Thadani. Johar is releasing it like a big budget Bollywood film with aggressive promotions and extensive television interviews.
Karan Johar, in a media interaction at the promotions of Hindi Baahubali, said: “It was Rana Dagubatti who mentioned the name of Rajamouli, and I immediately said yes to present the film as I had great trust in Rajamouli, given his nationwide fan following and track record. I've been a huge fan of his work and have seen all his films.”
Rajamouli himself acknowledged it and said: “Half-way through the film we knew to take it to the all India level we needed a big brand and presenter. And Rana talked to Karan Johar who agreed to market it in every nook and corner of North India. Of course, Karan Johar's sensibilities are entirely different from mine but I think we share the same passion for films in general, even though we make different kinds of films."
Down south there is definitely a craze building for Baahubali, with unprecedented advance booking in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. Tickets are getting sold out for the opening weekend like hot cakes. There was a one kilometre queue outside Prasad multiplex in Hyderabad when booking started for the sale of tickets and we've learnt that their server crashed one hour after online booking started!
Now the entire film industry in India is looking at whether a south Indian film like Baahubali, with only Rana Dagubatti and Tamannah Bhatia known to North Indian audiences will penetrate the Hindi heartland. The highly respected Hollywood trade magazine Variety wrote - “All movie industry eyes in India this weekend will be turned not to Bollywood, but to Hyderabad and the release of Telugu-language epic action Baahubali. The picture is not only the biggest budget Indian film of all time, weighing in at some $40 million for two-parts, it is also shaping up to be one of the biggest movie events the country has seen in years.”
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