Badrinath
After an year long hiatus, Allu Arjun is back on the screen with an epic drama 'Badrinath'. Directed by V V Vinayak, a name that is synonymous with commercial hits in Telugu cinema, Badrinath is a mammoth project that cost the producer Rs 35 crore. Arjun's father Allu Aravind produced this action thriller on his Geeta Arts banner.
This movie stars Tamannah, Prakash Raj, Bramhanandam, Kelly Dorjee et al. Tamannah who is the most sought after actress in Telugu cinema now looks superhot in the trailers. Observers claim that perhaps this is the heights of skin show Tamannah could ever go upto.
If sources are to be believed, Allu Arjun plays the role of a warriror who is trained to protect a temple. Prakash Raj is the chief priest of the temple. But with the advent of Tamannah, Allu Arjun shifts his focus from his duties towards her beauty. In the process, enemies attack the temple. The story thereafter is about how Allu Arjun restores the sanctity of the temple and the identity of Tamannah is revealed.
The action sequences choreographed by Peter Haynes suggest a lot of gravity defying scenes in this movie. Allu Arjun's impressive dance is clearly going to be an added USP for the movie. It is after a long time that he is flaunting his body on screen.
Though the story of this movie written by Chinni Krishna doesn't sound anything new, the grandeur of the budget promises a visual treat. Apparently, the movie unit spent a whopping Rs 3 crore towards erecting a simple set for a song. Popular art director Anand Sai and his team worked on erecting huge sets for this project. Bunny learnt special martial arts at Vietnaam for two months to look authentic in this picture. He says his primary goal is to earn the investment back on this movie.
"Firstly my goal is to get the money back. We spent a huge amount of money on making this movie. At times we erected a set and then we had to remove it due to technical problems. We lost a lot of money there. But my dad spent a bomb on making this epic drama. I worked really hard for it. I hope we recover our investment" he says candidly.
This film is also releasing in Malayalam and Tamil soon. M M Keeravani composed music for it and the tracks 'Ambadari', 'Nath Nath', are popular now thanks to its repeated telecast on television. Since the look of this movie has a striking resemblence to Allu Arjun's cousin Ramcharan's 'Magadheera', expectations are high on the movie.
However, the promotions for such a huge project are not upto the mark and the trailers evoked mixed response from the audience. Lack of competition from other movies, summer vacations and Tamannah's charm might get the movie great openings. However, weekend collections are not sufficient to recover the investments. It is tough for it to breakeven unless it is earth shatteringly great film.
The box office fate of this movie will change the pattern of making films in Tollywood thanks to the budget spent in making this film. This action thriller hits the screens on June 10th.