Shirdi Sai Baba, starring star actor Akkineni Nagarjuna and directed by ace director K Raghavendra Rao, might have taken the audiences into the outside world, but it definitely landed the producers in deep soup.
Nagarjuna had received rave reviews for his excellent performance and Raghavendra Rao got accolades for making the film without his routine commercial elements.
The producer, too, managed to make good money, if not great profits. But, going by the trade talk, the distributors suffered heavy losses in all the regions -- Nizam, Andhra and Ceded.
The buyers are now grumbling that it might not be wrong for a commercial director like Raghavendra Rao to make devotional movies, but he should also ensure that the distributors, too, make some money,
By the way, a similar experience was faced by the producers of earlier devotional films of Raghavendra Rao. His "Annamayya" fetched some profits for producer Doraiswamy Raju, but he disappeared from film industry subsequently. So was the case with producer Konda Krishnam Raju, who spent money on Raghavendra Rao's second devotional film Sri Ramadasu. He, too, quietly quit films and is now taking care of his business. Let us see, what will happen to the producer of Shirdi Sai Baba.
