Going by the present trend of things in Tollywood, remaking films from other languages seem to have caught up with our filmmakers, right now. Though ‘Jaanu’, the remake of a blockbuster ’96’ in Tamil failed miserably at the box-office, there are four remakes being made in Telugu, currently.
If we look at things from a broader perspective, one of the undeniable reasons for ‘Jaanu’ failure was the availability of the original on the digital platform. All the four remakes that are being made are already available on either Amazon Prime or Netflix.
Pawan Kalyan’s come back film, the remake of Bollywood’s super hit movie ‘Pink’ is available on Netflix and was widely watched by Telugu folks. Even Ram Pothineni’s ‘RED’, the remake of ‘Thadam’ is on Amazon Prime overseas. However, it’s not available to audiences in India.
Tamil ‘Asuran’ is being streamed on Amazon Prime while it’s being remade as ‘Narappa’ with Venkatesh. ‘Mahishinte Prathikaram’ being remade as ‘Uma Maheshwara Ugra Roopasya’ by ‘C/o Kancherapalem’ director is streaming on Amazon.
It’s strange and surprising to see all the four originals of upcoming as remakes are already available on digital platforms.
Unless the makers go for significant changes to cater to the tastes of the Telugu audiences and bring Telugu nativity, it would be hard to pull a respectable number at the box-office. ‘Jaanu’ is a big example from which the makers of remakes must learn.
