The Telugu version of actor Samantha’s U Turn that was released on Thursday, coinciding Vinayaka Chaturthi, was leaked online for full viewing just a few hours after its release. The Pawan Kumar directorial was made available on Movierulez, a torrent site. It was also reported that Samantha’s other Tamil release, Seema Raja, too was leaked online on Tamil Rockers immediately after its release. However, it was reportedly removed in a few hours.
The film is a bilingual that released simultaneously in both Tamil and Telugu. While it clashed with the Sivakarthikeyan-Samantha starrer Seema Raja at the box-office in Tamil Nadu, in Telugu, it released alongside Naga Chaitanya’s Shailaja Reddy Alludu.
In January this year, widely acclaimed movie Aruvi was leaked just a day after its release, but the makers of the movie were able to take down the page that leaked it, thus curbing damage. Later, 15 seconds of Rajinikanth’s Kaala was leaked online and the makers of the film lodged a complaint with the Chennai police’s cyber cell.
U Turn has been receiving praise from all quarters and the leak comes as a dampener to its box-office performance.
Director Pawan has debuted in both Tamil and Telugu with this bilingual remake of his 2016 Kannada hit movie. The original starred Shraddha Srinath, Dileep Raj and Roger Nayaran, with actors Samantha, Rahul Ravindran and Adhi taking up their respective roles in the remake. U Turn also stars Bhumika Chawla and Aadukalam Naren in important roles.
The director during a press event had shared that most of the original film has been retained, except for the climax which has been completely rewritten.
Talking about Samantha’s character to TNM, director Pawan had said, “When I wrote U Turn’s story, I had a male lead in mind. But I decided there’s much more to a female character, more unexplored parts to a woman. Women are always more intuitive and deeper, and I wanted to bring this out. I had not written this story to harp on feminist ideals. I treated this character like I would a male.”
Actor Samantha has had a good number of films in 2018 so far. Rangasthalam in Telugu was a blockbuster that earned her very good response. Her role in the Savitri biopic, Mahanati, too was greatly lauded.
In Tamil, Samantha was seen in Irumbu Thirai alongside Vishal followed by Seema Raja with Sivakarthikeyan.