Watching Kantara, Rajamouli says that the mindsets of the producers and directors have to be changed. He affirms that the big budgets and stars are not required to make big collections at the box office.
Kantara was made at Rs 16 Cr (as officially mentioned) but bagged more than Rs 400 Cr. So, the net profit is very huge which is almost 25 times of the investment. On the other hand Rajamouli's RRR and Babubali couldn't match with the feat of Kantara in terms of ROI.
Keeping this aside, Rajamouli kept on increasing the budgets of his films for following reasons:
- Spending huge amounts on sets
- Outsourcing the VFX and CGI to overseas companies and technicians
- Leisure way of making in the name of perfection
- Spending more and more on national and international promotions
In spite of doing all this, the breakeven has become a Herculean task. But without following any of these, Kantara scored the biggest success.
The native Telugu technicians made 'Hanuman' with a budget of 20 - 25Cr with enough good graphics. Kantara, KGF and Bimbisara also have the graphics in the way they need to be. Then why are the big films burning hundreds of crores on graphics?
The films like PS1, Brahmastra and RRR have burned hundreds of crores on graphics. But still, the fake collection reports are being shown to keep the project in bright light. We know that PS1 didn't run anywhere in India except in Tamilnadu. The fate of Brahmastra is also known. Dil Raju himself revealed of late that Bahubali-The Beginning incurred losses to producers. RRR also dumped some distributors in losses in India. But screening the film in Japan, the makers are adding the new figures to the overall collection to make it look bigger than the genuine hits like KGF2.
Kantara is a magic that is not always possible. It just worked in spite of having potential in it.
Kantara and Karthikeya2 have normal heroes but they worked well at the box office. Acharya has two star heroes but that was a colossal disaster. So, the directors like Rajamouli should understand that making films with the old school methods like image, formula, high budget and routine content prove to be a burden on the shoulders of producers.
Now the audience show their patrozie to the films like Kantara, Karthikeya 2 and Drushyam-2. The one who makes films with a small budget, in lesser time with out-of-the-box content is the real big director now. Rajamouli is completely opposite to this. He is known for big and bigger projects. He even presented Brahmastra in South India. But still talks contrary to what he has been doing.
There is a saying in Telugu- "Vriddha Nari Pativrata" which implies that an old lady embraces morality (though she enjoyed all sorts of pleasures at a young age). Now this adage can be applied to Rajamouli. He is the one who introduced Bahubalian budgets in the Indian film industry. He's the one who spoiled the mindsets of heroes planting the greed of earning big for each film they do. But now he is chanting the 'low budget' mantra.
Kiran Sharma
