Mahesh Babu
- Krishna Vamsi's magnum opus was released after a delay of one
and half month. The story of the film dealt with the sensitive
point death. Krishna Vamsi lets the audience know in advance that
the hero is going to die on that particular year. The rest of
the film revolves around how the hero had close shaves with the
events and finally survived because of a willingly sacrificing
grandmother.
The movie's
run at box-office was not a smooth one. There were lots of negative
comments about the film. Murari took some time to pick up. The
main complaint of the film is the movie length, which lasted for
3 hours. This film has got lots of mantras (religious chanting)
spread across the film, which are quite elaborate. The producer
wanted to re-edit the film to trim that length. Krishna Vamsi,
who is an extremely religious guy, opined that it would do harm
to the people involved in the filmmaking, if any of the mantras
are trimmed. But, the theater owners have become self-styled editors
and trimmed the film to their liking. Krishna Vamsi performed
santhi homam (poojas invoking the goddess to forgive) to
appease the divine power.
This film
was mired with another controversy. The producer accused Mahesh
Babu for siding off with Krishna Vamsi and taking the film reigns
into his hands. Though the film made handsome profits to the producer
and distributors, the 100 days celebration function was not made
as the hero and the producer became the poles apart after the
release.
According
to the trade pundits, this movie collected a handsome share of
12 cores. And Murari is the only release of Mahesh Babu in the
year of 2001.
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