Allu Arjun: Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, Rajinikanth's Darbar, Mahesh Babu's Sarileru Neekevvaru clash 'mutual decision'

This Makar Sankranti, the South Indian film industry has released not one but four much-awaited films. While Rajinikanth's Darbar released on Friday and Mahesh Babu's Sarileru Neekevvaru released on Saturday, Allu Arjun's film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo hit theatres on Sunday. The actor spoke about the clash of the films and revealed some details about his own release too.

At the pre-release event of his film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, Allu Arjun congratulated Rajinikanth and Mahesh Babu for the success of their films Darbar and Sarileru Neekevvaru respectively. He further went on to talk about the clash and how the distributors mutually decided that there should be some gap between the movie releases.

“Sankranti is a big festival in the Telugu states. There was a time when four films released for the festival, and all of them ran well at the box office. The Sankranti season got the potential for multiple releases. We have spaced out because our distributors should recover the investment. At the end of the day, the same distributor would buy one of my upcoming films so they have to survive”, he said.

More so, Allu confirmed that he is in talks with Darbar director A.R. Murugadoss for next. “Yes, the talks are on. Chennai is the place where I born and grew up so I definitely want to do a Tamil film but it should also appeal to the audiences in the Telugu states and North India. Murugadoss is primarily a Tamil director but he got a market in Telugu and Hindi. I also want to be a South Indian star who owns a pan-India market. This is my ultimate goal,” stated Allu Arjun.

Talking about how he finalized his movie, Allu Arjun told Firstpost, “My previous release Naa Peru Surya, Naa Illu India was a serious film so I took a break to do a lighthearted family entertainer. Not all directors can handle a family entertainer film featuring a star hero. According to me, Trivikram rightly balances the family drama genre for a star, who also needs songs and action sequences to satisfy his target audiences. You have to understand that family drama is different from the family entertainer. For a festival like Sankranti, people go to the theater for entertainment and celebration. Both Trivikram and I picked a script that suits this festival. Before Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, we discussed another story but it didn’t materialise."