Keerthy Suresh’s Mahanati is unstoppable at the box-office, both domestically as well as at the US ticket window. On Friday, the film’s US distributor Nirvana Cinemas confirmed that the Nag Ashwin directed biopic on legendary southern woman actor has entered $2 million club, making it the first heroine-centric film to achieve the feat.
Ten days since its release, the film has grossed a whopping Rs. 42 crore and counting worldwide. Also starring Samantha Akkineni, Vijay Deverakonda, Shalini Pandey and Prakash Raj, the film was made on a lavish scale and is a fitting tribute to the veteran. Dulquer Salmaan, who made his Telugu debut through this project, was seen playing actor Gemini Ganesan.
Samantha, on completing shooting for the project, took to Twitter and wrote: “And it’s a wrap on Mahanati. Wrapped up three films this month. Been an absolute honour to be part of such history. Thank you for a wonderful experience.”
With massive set pieces, the film was unlike anything that’s been explored in Indian cinema before. When asked why a biopic on Savitri and not on any other popular actor, Ashwin had said: “There have been countless actresses over the last 80 years in Telugu cinema but none have earned the title of Mahanati, and even today it has solely been reserved for Savitri”.
The project was originally scheduled to release on March 30. However, the makers confirmed that the film, which was high on visual effects, had to be postponed and it finally released on May 9th in Telugu. Two days later, the film released in Tamil as Nadigayar Thilagam. Savitri, one of the most versatile actors that the film industry has seen till date, was born on 4 January 1936. She has acted in several films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam Kannada and Hindi in her long career. Her debut was with the Telugu flick Samsaram in 1950 and her first ever Tamil movie as heroine was a couple of years later with Kalyanam Pannip Paar.
She died on 26 December 1981 due to substance abuse.
(Content provided by Digital Native)