Rajamouli Created An Irreplaceable Brand: Bollywood Director

SS Rajamouli, the man with the Midas touch, is an undisputed brand in Indian cinema. He set unbeatable benchmarks in filmmaking with movies such as Magadheera, Eega, the Baahubali franchise, and RRR. His filmmaking style and passion continue to influence and inspire numerous filmmakers across the country.

Anurag Kashyap, acclaimed Bollywood filmmaker and one of Rajamouli’s most favourite Indian filmmakers, has praised Rajamouli to the sky. Addressing the students during a masterclass at Nagarjuna’s Annapurna School of Film and Media in Hyderabad recently, the Gangs of Wasseypur and Black Friday director said that there are at least ten duplicate Rajamoulis who tried to imitate him but failed to recreate the same magic.

Anurag went on to tell the students to create their own individuality and that imitating a particular filmmaker’s style is a pointless exercise. He also advised the students to remain original without copying and watch numerous movies, which will help them create their own flair and style.

“There are several filmmakers who also tried to imitate Prashanth Neel’s KGF, but you can see what’s happening with their movies. Pan-India is not a new trend. We had Chiranjeevi’s Pratibandh and Nagarjuna’s Shiva in the 90s. But the pan-India trend has become a golden goose to several filmmakers,” Anurag added.

Anurag’s words make total sense. A few movies that followed the Baahubali and KGF templates failed at the box office in spite of spending hundreds of crores on the making. Movies like Upendra’s Kabza and Vijay’s Puli were turned down by critics and audiences as poorly made copies of KGF and Baahubali.

Even a stalwart filmmaker like Mani Ratnam had openly stated that Rajamouli’s Baahubali had inspired him to make his ambitious historical drama, Ponniyin Selvan. That’s the kind of brand Rajamouli has created for himself in Indian cinema. His ongoing movie, the Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Prithviraj starrer, is being made with a whopping Rs 1,000 crore budget.