This Sankranthi witnessed tough fight between four films with Guntur Kaaram being a biggie while two are midrange films and a small film, HanuMan. Ravi Teja's Eagle which was also scheduled for Sankranthi has opted out of the festival due to lack of enough theatres. Even though Venkatesh's Saindhav and Nagarjuna's Naa Saami Ranga are in the field, interesting competition rises between Guntur Kaaram and HanuMan.
Reason behind this strange tiff is both the films got released on the same date. Generally, in recent years we didn't witnessed two films releasing on the same day especially when a huge star film is releasing. Many suggested and opined that HanuMan makers are taking huge risk clashing on with Guntur Kaaram.
Things were also happened as expected like huge number of Theatres opted to play Guntur Kaaram while a very less number of Theatres screened HanuMan. After getting this, HanuMan makers decided to go with paid premiers one day before accross both Telugu states. This move has worked in favour of them. The film fetched very good positive word of mouth with its premiers.
Now, with Guntur Kaaram receiving weak reviews and divide talk, attention of audiences are shifting towards HanuMan as the positive reviews are pouring in for the film. The film witnessed packed houses towards the evening shows and is having heavy advance bookings for its second day, 13th January. Screen count is also getting increased despite Venkatesh's Saindhav is releasing on January 13. Interesting boxoffice fight ahead for this Sankranthi.