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.