With barely eight or nine hours left for Kalki 2898 AD to release, very little is known about what one of the costliest films has on offer for the public. It is a futuristic film, of course, but hardly anybody knows about what one can expect from the film. That’s because there have hardly been any preview shows of the film which stars Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Disha Patani.
Inside sources say that the although the first half of the Rs. 650-crore film (including cost of promotion) is quite ordinary, the post-interval portion doesn’t give the audience time to think. Know-alls say that the second half of the film is its mainstay and will be loved by the public.
It may surprise the trade to know that producer C. Aswani Dutt is so confident of his film that he has granted distribution rights to every single distributor on advance basis rather than MG royalty basis. Which means that God forbid, if anything were to go wrong with the box-office performance of the film, he would have to refund the loss amounts to the distributors. The total recovery by way of advances (from Nizam, Ceded, Upper Andhra, East Godavari, West Godavari, Guntur, Krishna, Nellore, Andhra-Telangana, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Kerala, rest of India (Hindi version), and Overseas) is approximately Rs. 385 crore.
Another noteworthy point worth mentioning is that the producer has paid off all his creditors before the release. Yes, you read it right! Although Aswani Dutt is himself taking the entire risk on the film, he has cleared off all his dues — and that’s creditable, to say the least! The bills for visual effects and computer graphics alone have totalled Rs. 200-crore-plus!
Talking about the plans for the film, it is by now well-known that the advance booking for the Hindi version is not up to the mark. But the sale of tickets at the advance booking counters of the Telugu version has been beyond brisk. Not surprising, given that Prabhas has a huge fan following down South. As far as the Hindi version is concerned, tickets for the 3D format have been selling far more briskly than those for the 2D format. Also, the advance booking in premium multiplexes is good.
Kalki 2898 AD has been shot in Telugu and dubbed in Hindi and Tamil. A few scenes have also been shot in Hindi, besides Telugu.
The digital rights of the various versions of the film have already been sold for around a total of Rs. 225 crore. The satellite rights have not yet been sold because C. Aswani Dutt has preferred to wait for the film to release rather than sell the rights prior to its theatrical release at what he considers is an unfairly low price.