Initially, Prabhas wanted to do The Raja Saab as a small-budget film to compensate People’s Media Factory for the losses faced during the distribution of his previous films. The original idea was to make a simple horror entertainer with director Maruthi, similar to Prema Katha Chitram.
Horror entertainers usually take place in a house or one main location, so they do not need a big budget or long shooting schedules. Horror is also a universal genre that can work well across regions and languages.
The Raja Saab team made a major mistake by transforming it into a big-budget film.
But after the big success of Salaar and Kalki, the team got carried away. They decided to turn the project into a large-scale film, changing it from a simple horror entertainer into a horror fantasy. Some already-shot portions were even scrapped, and the project was restarted on a much bigger scale. This decision turned out to be a major mistake.
Had The Raja Saab been made as a simple horror entertainer with a small-budget, it could have worked well in all languages without the need for grand visuals or huge scale. But because of this change in approach, the budget increased, shooting days increased, and the film’s finances went out of control.
Maruthi Failed to Handle the Big Idea with The Raja Saab
The story also suffered in the process. Maruthi struggled to handle such a complex and large-scale project. If the film had remained a simple horror entertainer, which is his strength, he could have delivered a much better result. One wrong decision ended up putting the entire project at risk.
The concepts of hallucination and hypnotism, along with the climax featuring a mind game between the hero and his grandfather’s ghost, held promise but ultimately failed to resonate with audiences due to poor execution.
