It’s not bad to dream, but you also have to consider what’s realistic. This quote perfectly concludes the hype around Devara, an action drama film starring ‘Young Tiger’ NTR, Janhvi Kapoor, and Saif Ali Khan in lead roles. Made on a massive budget, this is touted as a two-part saga, with its first installment, Devara: Part One, heading for release in October 2024.
While the film certainly has the potential to emerge as a big ‘Hit’, the economics its makers are dealing with look too ambitious to say the least. Admittedly, Tarak hasn’t received much recognition from S. S. Rajamouli’s epic action drama RRR (2022) in non-Telugu markets. To be more precise, the non-Telugu audience barely knows him. Additionally, the film’s director, Koratala Shiva, is not a ‘Pan-Indian’ filmmaker like Rajamouli.
Devara‘s theatrical rights in non-Telugu markets are valued at INR 100 crore; this is way too much for an actor of NTR’s calibre. The film must receive rave reviews followed by an excellent box-office run to achieve breakeven. Even in Telugu, the film was sold for INR 120 crore, which is again ambitious. Tarak’s career-highest grosser, Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava (2018), collected a distributor share of INR 85 crore; in fact, NTR is the only top-league Telugu star who doesn’t have a 100-crore-share film under his name.
Even with positive reviews, Tarak’s films struggle to perform in the long run due to the actor’s lack of pull among family audiences. All these clearly suggest that NTR is risking his stardom in search of expanding his market. Overall, Devara must mint a worldwide gross of INR 400 crore to emerge as a ‘Hit’, which is an extremely big task considering Tarak’s market.
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