Rajamouli is the master of marketing and content and he is a pride of Indian cinema for sure. But what he should have also understood by now is that his core audience are only Telugu and the rest are just unpredictable.
The success of Baahubali in all languages made him a national icon with audiences from all areas embracing him, but that is only a one-case thing. His subsequent film RRR got traction only in Telugu but not in other languages equally to Baahubali’s reception.
Now he is coming with Varanasi and the title teaser launch event was planned only in Hyderabad and not anywhere else because he might have understood that people come in thousands and lakhs to his events only at the local pitch but not everywhere.
He called international and Bollywood media to show off the following for him in a native pitch and also gave team interviews to those media houses. There is no info on where those interviews are coming and what impact they actually make.
On the other hand, he recently released Baahubali, The Epic, but I was shocked to see the numbers in North America from Tamil and Malayalam audiences. In Tamil the film grossed only $2,000 and for Malayalam it brought in only a shocking $100.
Yes, that is the plight of the film in other South Indian languages. In Hindi it made a disappointing $64,000 and in Telugu it made a rocking $867,000. This indicates his core audience are only Telugu and none else.
So keeping this in view, if Varanasi is made focusing on international audiences, fate will be unknown. For example, be it KGF, Kantara or Pushpa, they are stories of a region that were shown to the wider world and became resounding successes.
If Varanasi is not made in those lines grounded in roots, and delivers something away from Telugu nativity, the invincible Rajamouli may get shocked with the first blow to his reputation.
Luckily Baahubali worked due to its story that appealed to all audiences because of its drama and emotional storyline, plus out-of-the-box VFX for those times. But now people are exposed to VFX and AI at the next level, so doing something to please audiences with visual effects alone would not help anymore.
Varanasi is indeed a big test for Rajamouli. I hope he is making it grounded in the roots and not just playing in imagination.
I hope Rajamouli is keeping all this in mind. Looking at the teaser that has been released, it appears he is going in the lines of KALKI 2898 AD. If it is true then that is also a wrong move, because audiences do not patronize the same style twice with the same awe.
Rajamouli’s problem is Rajamouli himself. He should work a lot to surpass himself with each movie and it is really interesting to see if he can be successful in proving that with Varanasi as well.
Usha Chowdhary
