SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali boosted confidence in Telugu filmmakers to make high budget entertainers. Then, it was humongous success of Mahanati, biopic on Savitri, which influenced Telugu directors dared to make biopics on legendary personalities.
Before the release of NTR Kathanayakudu, first part of NTR biopic, many felt that, this film is going to become one of the biggest earners of Telugu cinema. Despite presence of many prominent people alongside Balakrishna who enacted his father, NTR Kathanayakudu sank like the colossal Titanic ship.
It was clearly evident that, Krish blindly obliged to Balakrishna’s decision of wrapping up the film at brisk pace and in the process he didn’t make sufficient changes on the script penned by Balakrishna and his writing team. To honor his father in each and every frame, Balakrishna showed only positive sides of father and he didn’t dare to show downs of NTR, this which resulted in flat narration.
After Mahanati success, many biopics were announced and NTR’s is one amongst them. Now, the failure of NTR Kathanayakudu is bringing shivers to makers of other biopics and high budget entertainers.
YS Rajasekhar Reddy’s biopic (not completely a biopic, but a piece of his Padayatra and other crucial segments) titled Yatra will be releasing on 8th February. The film directed by Mahi V Raghav features Malayalam super star Mammootty essaying former Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh YS Rajasekhar Reddy. The film also stars Jagapathi Babu, Suhasini Maniratnam, Rao Ramesh and Anasuya Bhardwaj in important roles.
YSR is a mass leader who brought Congress back to power in Andhra Pradesh. But, the question will normal movie buffs show interest to watch biopic of a high-ranking political leader. More importantly, the film does not have a saleable actor. Mammootty is a top star in Malayalam, but he is not a well-known for Telugus of this generation.
On the other hand, we should not compare this film with Mahanati which too did not have A-list actors. Mahanati was a complete journey of Savitri who was no way associated with politics. But, when it comes to biographical films on political leaders, they will not get outright support like for a non-political film. However, if the film will be compelling, there are chances for it to get support from normal movie buffs.
Besides Yatra, there are few other biographical films on various prominent personalities which are in the making stages. Nonetheless, the debacle result of NTR has surely brought them shivers.