Naga Vamsi, who has produced big projects this year like Daaku Maharaaj, Kingdom and Mad Square, is the producer for the upcoming Ravi Teja starrer Mass Jathara that is scheduled to hit theatres on October 31. Ahead of the release, Naga Vamsi alongwith Ravi Teja sat down with with director Kalyan Shankar for a casual interaction as part of the promotions. During the interview, the producer stated how Lokah wouldn’t have been successful if it was originally a Telugu film.
Naga Vamsi was the distributor for Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra in Telugu speaking states. Talking about the audience’s discerning attitude towards Telugu movies, as compared to other industries, he said, “If Lokah was straight made into Telugu, people would have found countless ways to criticise it. They would have said there’s a lag in the narrative, there is no flow etc. Nobody would have watched it.”
Naga Vamsi also called the Telugu film audience unpredictable in their ways and viewing patterns. “These days, film-goers are very edgy. Nobody can tell what they will like. For example, there came this film called Little Hearts. There no was big star in it, nobody knows who the director is. And yet, the premiere shows opened up with much bigger opening than the star-vehicle that released alongwith it.”
During the same interview, both Ravi Teja and Naga Vamsi spoke about the different attitudes of audience during regular season and festival season, where they claimed that audience are more critical of films which release in non-season periods. Naga Vamsi said, “it has become fashionable to point out lack of novelty or originality in conventional mainstream films that release during regular periods.”
Besides grossing more than 100 crore in Malayalam version, Lokah: Chapter 1 Chandra earned nearly Rs 16 crore (nett) through its Telugu version at domestic box office. The film’s worldwide collections stand roughly at Rs 302 crore, according to a report from Sacnilk.com.
