It has been 17 days since actor Prabhas’ much-awaited flm “Saaho” hit the silver screen.
Despite the mixed response from the audiences and not-so-encouraging reviews from critics, the Rs 300 crore action-thriller has almost recovered its expenditure as the third week is coming to a close.
Though “Saaho” has still been running in the theaters, the collections are nearly negligible and in some areas, it is said to be running in deficit.
So, what is the final status of “Saaho”? How much the producers are going to lose?
Contrary to the perception, the producers of “Saaho” are not going to lose heavily on this project. “Saaho” was released in Telugu states on the advance basis in most areas and other territories, the film was sold for a good amount.
The Hindi version has already been declared a hit. With “Saaho”, Prabhas has cemented his position in the North Indian market and it is a huge gain for him.
The film brought heavy losses to the Tamil and Malayalam producers as well as the Karnataka distributor. But producers will not be paying them to offset the losses as per the agreement prior release.
The overseas rights of “Saaho” were bagged by a Dubai-based company for a whopping Rs 43 crore. It sold the film in various territories like the USA, Australia, and Europe to different distributors.
Only in the USA, the film has seen losses but in Australia, the distributor has made some profits. The overall overseas collection is put together at about US $ 8 million. This also eases off pressure on the producers are the losses here are nominal.
Coming to the Telugu states, the film was released with the valuation of Rs 120 crore on an advance basis. It collected a share of Rs 80 crore plus, despite so many negative reviews and bad talk through word-of-mouth. The advance taken will be returned to the distributors.
Since the makers have closed stunning non-theatrical deals like digital, audio and satellite, they are in a comfortable position to return to the advance amount. So, they will not face any problems from the distributors.
Overall, “Saaho” didn’t become a headache for the producers as anticipated on the day of the release. It still is a flop in Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam but also stood as one of the all-time top grosser in general.
Thanks to Prabhas's craze, the producers have escaped from a major embarrassment this time but they have to take extra care about the script of Prabhas's next film that is already under production to escape from the wrath of the audiences. The 'Baahubali' craze will not last forever.
