Megastar Chiranjeevi's film Bhola Shankar is facing major setbacks, turning into a disaster financially. The movie failed to recover even 30 crore rupees during its entire run, making it a bigger disaster than Acharya. Producer Anil Sunkara's career has been quite unstable. Despite the success of a small film Samajavaragamana following the failure of Agent, his recent project Hidimbha garnered non-theatrical rights success despite its theatrical failure.
Anil's latest setback comes from Bhola Shankar. Apart from Vizag and West, the film had little to no takers for distribution. Anil had to resort to self-distribution for regions like Nizam, Overseas, Krishna, Guntur, and East Godavari.
Initially, Anil bore the blame for the combination he chose. However, rumors in Filmnagar suggest that Chiranjeevi further complicated the situation for Anil. Chiranjeevi demanded a remuneration of around Rs 65 crores, insisting on receiving it prior to the film's release. With the movie's poor performance, Anil had to mortgage properties like plots in Shadnagar and Suryapet, along with his luxurious house in Hyderabad, to pay Chiranjeevi's fee. Anil even proposed including satellite rights in Chiranjeevi's remuneration, but this was rejected.
The legal issues surrounding Agent added to the complications. Industry insiders acknowledge that if Anil wasn't the producer, the movie might not have released on August 11.
Adding to the complexity, Anil received an offer of Rs 16-17 crores from Nizam, but Chiranjeevi intervened. Chiranjeevi argued that since Waltair Veerayya collected around 33 crores, selling the film for less than half of that amount would be an insult. As a result, Anil had to self-distribute the movie in Nizam as well. Presently, the situation is grim, with Bhola Shankar unlikely to even earn 10 crores from Nizam.
This scenario underscores the challenges faced by producers in the industry, particularly when working with a star like Chiranjeevi.
