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Filmmaker Om Raut, who faced the wrath of the devout audience after the release of the film Adipurush, has defended it in a new interview. He said that the movie was a victim of false perception, and that it has actually made quite an impressive sum of money at the box office. Based on the Ramayana, Adipurush starred Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Sunny Singh, and Saif Ali Khan as versions of Lord Rama, Sita, Lakshman, and Raavan. Om Raut also said that stars like Prabhas and Salman Khan are ‘flop-proof’. “They have huge fan followings. Ups and downs cannot affect them, because the audiences’ love for them is beyond comprehension,” he said.
Appearing on Amol Parchure’s YouTube channel, the filmmaker opened up about the film’s reception, and listed all its box office achievements. “Our first day was Rs 70 crore, and that’s just in India. Our total box office was over Rs 400 crore. So, the numbers were very large… With Adipurush, there was a loss of perception, not loss of revenue. If the perception was positive, if the perception was under control, we would’ve seen an exorbitant number, which we did not see. That was disappointing.”
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He said that despite what was written about the film, he received messages from people all across the country praising the film. “Because of a few small aspects, the perception of the entire film became negative. This is because interest in regressive media is much higher, but that’s the nature of the business,” he said, suggesting that he noticed ‘some planning to pan the film’ by people with vested interest, such as those who shared clips from screenings on social media. “But it’s fine, it’s done and dusted,” he said.
Asked about the wave after wave of criticism that Adipurush received, the filmmaker said, “At the end of the day, these things don’t matter. The only thing that matters is how you did at the box office. In the Telangana territory alone we did Rs 200 crore. That’s a huge number. In the US, we did more than $10 million,” he said, adding that the tone of the criticism was the problem, because he has no problem with criticism itself. “Defending it isn’t the solution, you have to accept it,” he said.
Adipurush experienced its first wave of criticism immediately after the release of its teaser, which was unanimously panned by audiences for its sub-par visual effects. Some days later, it was announced that the movie would be delayed from its planned January release. It was eventually released in June, when, in addition to renewed criticism for the VFX, it was slammed for its dialogue and several creative choices. A controversy ensued, which greatly impacted the film’s performance. Reviews weren’t kind, despite the positive messages that Om Raut said that he received from across the country; Adipurush has a 7% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
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