Aa rahi hai movies...and the revenge of two filmmakers
Hi there,
Hope you had a great week!
Mine was quite busy trying to catch up with the flood of announcements that came out from the Hindi film industry. The other news or should I say non-news item that had me tickled was our PM Modi’s trip to the US and the media circus around it. There’s also a monkey that caught my attention.
I wanted to write about all of them in this digest. But I am going to skip Modi and the monkey and focus only on movies.
It will be quite a ridiculous combo of items if I speak about them all in one digest :).
Here goes…
Aa rahi hai movies
It’s been a while since the Hindi film industry released any of its big films in the theatres. The two that braved to come out ‘Bell Bottom’ and ‘Thalaivii’ tanked mercilessly at the box office.
The primary reason why Bollywood filmmakers have been skeptical to release their movies is because theatres in Maharashtra are closed. That’s their biggest market.
Last week there was an announcement by the Maharashtra government that theatres will finally open from October 22.
That single announcement started a chain reaction.
Akshay Kumar made the first move with the line — AA RAHI HAI POLICE.
Then started the mad rush of blocking release dates by every other filmmaker. It was something similar to revenge tourism and shopping we’ve been seeing ever since lockdown restrictions have been lifted.
They have now blocked release dates till the end of 2022 and even until 2023. Check this tweet by Taran Adarsh to catch the full list.
In true Akshay Kumar style it is not a misnomer if we say that this is the AA RAHI HAI MOVIES moment. Or is it AA RAHE HAI MOVIES?
Whatever; if you have been eagerly waiting to catch some Bollywood biggies in the theatres, the floodgates have just opened.
There’s another trend I wanted to speak about related to big movies.
The pan-India fever
Ever since S. S. Rajamouli made the phenomenal Baahubali series he changed the game for every other big filmmaker.
While Bollywood was in shock, it had a particularly interesting impact on his contemporaries in the Telugu film industry.
It made them think — if SSR can do it, why can’t we do it?
There are two filmmakers I want to speak about now.
Puri Jagannadh: The man who used to be king
Puri is one of the biggest commercial directors of the Telugu film industry. His movies in the past have redefined the grammar of how a hero should behave on screen.
His ‘Pokiri’ (2006) with Mahesh Babu was an Industry Hit. Basically the biggest film till that point of time in the Telugu film industry.
He was the king!
That film was remade in multiple other languages. Prabhudeva and Salman Khan’s ‘Wanted’ was one of them. It reignited Salman’s career and set him on the path to sustained superstardom. His onscreen attitude post that film is a gift from Puri.
Even Ranveer Singh’s Simbaa is a remake of one of Puri’s films.
He made other blockbuster films post Pokiri but Rajamouli stole his thunder by making Magadheera and then the Baahubali series — each of them Industry Hits by an unheard of margin.
Puri wasn’t king anymore.
He had a spate of average movies in between but is now trying his best to become king again. He announced an ambitious pan-India film ‘Liger’ with the equally ambitious Vijay Deverakonda (the original Kabir Singh) and Karan Johar.
Just when we thought the stakes were high enough we got the news this week that he has roped in none other than the legendary Mike Tyson to play a key role in the film…boom!
Puri is pulling back no punches when it comes to this film. He’s taking a serious shot at being king again.
Here’s Vijay Deverakonda’s announcement about Tyson coming on-board.
Sukumar: The man Rajamouli fears
Sukumar is a big name in Telugu films.
He’s a master craftsman like a Sanjay Leela Bhansali but with the madness of an Anurag Kashyap, always trying unconventional themes, setups and characterisations.
His first film ‘Arya’ catapulted Allu Arjun into stardom.
In one of his interviews Rajamouli said he considers Sukumar to be his true competition.
In 2018 Sukumar made a what we now routinely call as ‘Non-Baahubali Industry Hit’ with his ‘Rangasthalam’.
However, why would anyone want that ‘Non-Baahubali’ tag associated with his blockbuster?
So he’s out to make a big dent in the universe too and announced the pan-India film ‘Pushpa’ with Allu Arjun.
When Rajamouli launched a song from his next film ‘RRR’ in five different languages with five different singers, Sukumar did exactly the same by launching his film’s song in five languages with five different singers.
He’s in for the kill. And Allu Arjun seems to be hungry for the pan-India pie too.
And to top it all, he’s roped in my favourite actor Fahadh Faasil as the antagonist. Thanks to OTT platforms, Fahadh Faasil is now a true pan-India actor because of the sheer brilliance and variety of work he’s produced over the years.
This is one deadly combo that I am eagerly waiting to see on screen.
Here’s his look from the movie.
Time will tell us how these pan-India experiments will fare.
There are plenty of other films out there vying for the pan-India pie, with the biggest among them being KGF Chapter 2 having tasted blood already with Chapter 1.
But the reason I picked these two films is because the filmmakers have a long history of competition with Rajamouli and it will be interesting to see if their almost vengeance like passion translates into massive box office success and the eventual crown.
What about the monkey?
I know you want to hear about it.
There isn’t much I need to particularly say about Modi that you already don’t know, but I sense that you are curious to know about the monkey I mentioned at the start.
My son first told me about this monkey. I thought he was kidding. I then Googled and found the story to be true.
Apparently a monkey in Karnataka travelled 22 kms to take revenge on some villagers who reported it to forest officials. It was particularly hell bent on taking revenge on one auto driver.
Disclaimer: This revenge story has no connection with the previous sections of this digest.
Here’s the article for you in case you want to entertain yourself :).
Monkey Travels 22 KM To Take 'Revenge' From Villagers Who Informed Forest Officials About It
Signing off for this week
Guess I almost wrote a blogpost instead of a digest this week. Maybe I’ll publish this on my blog too. Will let you know next week how that goes.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Eagerly looking forward to hearing your feedback. You can reply to this mail or drop me a note on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
Do share this digest with your friends too.
Cheers!!!
Kartik Dayanand Boddapati