25 August 2019
Hyderabad

Picking up a genre while making any film is influenced by many factors. Its based on budget and market potential of a hero. A mass/action film requires more budget and guarantees bigger income if made well. With the advent of digital camera and independent filmmaking, the newcomers are preferring suspense thrillers and horror comedies because they require less budget.

Horror comedy and suspense thrillers are two genres in Telugu that lack inertia at USA box office. Except for Drushyam (which also falls in the genre of family entertainer), none of the Telugu suspense thrillers made money at USA box office so far. All of them were loss making ventures for USA distributors.

Evaru broke those shackles and went on to become a safe film in USA. Evaru is a true suspense thriller with no love story or family drama in it. It has got its share of obstacles as the original Spanish film The Invisible Guest is available on Netflix India/USA. Badla, Hindi version of The Invisible Guest is also available on Netflix (added to Netflix a week before Evaru release). The audience in the USA are well aware of the fact that it's an official adaptation. Despite that fact, most of the Telugu movie lovers went to the theaters and watched the film.

Adivi Sesh has tasted his first success with the thriller Kshanam. Made with a shoestring budget of 1.5 crore, this film went on to become a hit. But, it made only $138k in USA despite generating good reviews and favorable word of mouth in 2016. His second hit Goodachari has collected a massive $772k in USA because its made in a favorable BO genre (spy action film).

The landing cost of Evaru is Rs. 9 crores. It is expected to amass Rs. 18 crores revenue (including non-theatrical revenues like Satellite and Digital) to producer PVP. Evaru has collected a good revenue of $442k by Sunday (25 August) in the USA. Evaru has broken shackles and proved that a wellmade Telugu suspense thriller can be a safe venture in USA despite selling for a high price.

Adivi Sesh’s market is growing steadily with each of the film. His forthcoming films Major and Goodachari hold a lot of promise. We can expect Goodachari 2 to breach $1 Million mark if made well (because of the favorable genre).

PVP is one of very few corporate houses in Telugu to generate well-made concept films. The list of good concept films they have made in the past include Kshanam, Ghazi, Oopiri and Evaru. Since its a corporate company, they are free from financial pressure (financier’s interest payment and distributor demands). They spend a lot of time in pre production and post production. They have deep financial pockets and they can wait for the right time (for months) even though they got the finished copy ready with them. Because of the PVP’s decision to work more on pre-post production and wait for the right release window, he has become highly successful at delivering good concept films.

Here we are giving the list of Telugu suspense thrillers and horror comedies with their respective USA collections.

Suspense Thrillers
Evaru - $442k (and counting)
Drushyam - $413k
U Turn - $309k
Kshanam - $138k
Rakshasudu - $114k

Horror Comedies
Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada - $716k
Anando Brahma - $421k
Rajugari Gadhi 2 - $324k
Premakatha Chitram - $76k
Rajugari Gadhi - $18k