SS Rajamouli has been attacked by trolls on social media. They are blaming him for getting 'Sarkaru Vaari Paata' and 'Bheemla Nayak' out of the way and then postponing 'Roudram Ranam Rudhiram' at the last minute. With 'RRR' getting postponed too late (just six days before its scheduled theatrical release), trolls believe, the movies of Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan are unprepared to release their movies for Sankranthi.
Trolls have the benefit of hindsight. When RRR's date was decided months ago, nobody knew about the third wave. The new wave is getting more and more serious in Delhi and Mumbai, leaving everyone in the film industry tense.
One must pose a hypothetical question: Why was 'Radhe Shyam' not released last year? The answer lies in the uncertainty surrounding several key territories.
For much part of the second half of 2021, after the second wave, uncertainty gripped the Hindi market and other territories. This is the reason 'RRR' and 'Radhe Shyam', the two pan-India movies, were postponed. This is also the reason 'KGF-2' got postponed.
Forget pan-India movies. Why was 'Acharya' not released last year? The answer lies, again, in the atmosphere of uncertainty. Recently, 'Akhanda' producer Miryala Ravinder Reddy stated that he was not ready to release his movie on December 2 as he was not sure about the audience's response during the pandemic. It took distributors and others to convince him to go for it. His gamble paid off, luckily. The producer of 'Akhanda' spent much less on the movie and yet, he said, "I faced the maximum amount of mental tension during the release." One can imagine about bigger movies.
Films like 'Acharya' were postponed to February not because of Rajamouli. They were postponed because nobody knew any damn thing about the pandemic and the family audiences' interest in movies. 'Pushpa' and 'Akhanda' have proved that families are now enthusiastic. But the third wave has started playing havoc.
Even as we are talking, the final decision on 'Radhe Shyam' is yet to be taken. Will trolls now blame Rajamouli's driver for it?
