Opinion: Adipurush - An Epic Celluloid Misadventure

Two storms last week that had everyone on tenterhooks. One was a cyclone, given the dark name of Biparjoy (meaning 'disaster' in Bengali) by the Bangladesh caucus of the World Meteorological Organization. Thankfully, Biparjoy caused very little damage in Gujarat and wilted into a 'deep depression' moving on to neighbouring Rajasthan.

The other was 'Adipurush', the Hindi film produced by the entertainment industry giant T-Series, starring Prabhas, Saif Ali Khan and Kriti Sanon. The Om Raut directorial was expected to smash all records at the ticket windows. Instead, it drove furious movie-goers away from theatres. The film meant as a retelling of the epic "Ramayana", proved to be an unmitigated disaster in terms of cinematic craft, ambition and intent.

Never before had any Hindi film stirred such intense backlash among pan-Indian audiences. Within hours of its release in theatres, angry and disappointed people were going full blast against the film. They were stunned by the shoddiness of the venture.

Made on a mind-boggling budget of around Rs 600 crore, the film collected Rs 35 crore on its opening day (Hindi version) netting the same figure through the weekend. It began hemorrhaging from Monday (7.75 crores) to Tuesday (4.75 crores) and Wednesday (3.50 crores). It managed high weekend figures solely due to the spectacular advances that the film garnered before release.