There’s always a huge hype whenever a new film announcement related to Pan India superstar Prabhas is on the cards. Ironically, when it comes to the release date things seem to go horribly wrong. His upcoming film Salaar has been indefinitely postponed again. This was a pattern for his earlier films too — Sahoo, Radhe Shyam and Adipurush. In a worrisome coincidence, Vfx seems to play a spoilsport in all these films. Worse still, none of them did well.
Perhaps no other Pan India superstar is facing these issues except Prabhas. At a time when his fans have been waiting to see him on the silver screen, his films were put off. And the reason for the hindrance in all his four projects (after Baabubali) is – ‘delay in Vfx’. Prabhas’ stardom has reached great heights and he owes it to his wide fan base by doing ‘larger than life roles.’ But designing such roles requires huge Vfx, pre-visualisation, flawless production design and beyond all meticulous planning. Prabhas’ is a great box office draw in global markets too. Hence filmmakers who approach him design larger-than-life roles and wider plots so that they can get back their return-on-investment (ROI). But unfortunately the films are hitting the roadblock at a crucial time.
Distributors in a fix
A change in the release of a big film automatically first affects buyers/distributors of other films. They have to re-plan their promotional strategies accordingly. Since Salaar’s revised release is rumoured to be November, the Prashanth Neel directorial could clash with Kalyanram-starrer Devil. And Devil producer Abhishek Nama says that distributors and filmmakers would be in a fix as to when to start their film promotions.
“If a big ticket film alters it’s release date, other small and medium budget films will have to suffer. It’s difficult to slot another release date because we have 2-3 releases every week. I am hoping that Salaar doesn’t clash with Devil,” he comments.
