Nagarjuna’s Odyssey Reference Is a Reality Check for Tollywood

Nagarjuna Akkineni is riding high with the success of his new film Lenin as a producer. During the success meet of the movie today, Nagarjuna made a heartfelt request to the entire Telugu film fraternity not to delay film releases and to stick to the deadlines and the already announced release dates. Nagarjuna also made a note to himself, admitting that he had even delayed the release of Lenin.

Delayed releases usually hurt a film’s business and kill the buzz surrounding it. The film industry is heading into an unhealthy trend of announcing a release date and then conveniently postponing it for various reasons. Sometimes, the reason for the postponements will be genuine, but it could have been avoided.

Nagarjuna takes the example of the Hollywood film Odyssey, which is currently running in theatres. The makers of Odyssey announced the film’s release date a year in advance, and Nag spoke about it, asking the technicians, directors, music directors, and everyone to prepare the release copy two weeks in advance. According to him, it will help generate a better product.

Nagarjuna also agrees that he postponed the release of Lenin since the film was not technically ready. He also asked himself why he could not meet the deadlines and recollected how, in the earlier days, they used to have the release copy ready a month in advance.

What Nagarjuna voiced out today is the mind voice of many in the film industry. Poor planning almost always results in negative outcomes. And the postponements will also impact other film releases, which we have seen in several instances. On the other hand, the filmmakers often try to stick to the release dates, but because multiple parties are involved, it becomes challenging for them. Of late, it has almost become practically impossible to plan things and execute without any hiccups.

We have to see how the industry welcomes this request from Nagarjuna!