Ram Gopal Varma says ‘big budget filmmakers’ will have ‘nightmares’ about Kantara’s box office collections

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma is all praises for actor-director Rishab Shetty after the success of his film, Kantara. Originally made in Kannada, Kantara has grossed over ₹ 100 crore globally. Directed and written by Rishab himself, the film was dubbed and released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu this Friday and will release in Malayalam this week. Also read: Kantara’s Rishab Shetty reveals the overwhelming reason he has stopped doing theatre visits

Ram Gopal Varma tweeted, “ The @Shetty_Rishab destroys the myth in film people that only mega budget films will pull people into theatres.. #Kantara will be a major lesson for decades to come.” Talking about the promising box office collection of the film across languages, he referred to Rishab’s character in the film and Daiva–the demigod in the film, and added, “In the film industry now, @Shetty_Rishab is like a Shiva multiplied by Guliga Daiva and the villains are the 300 cr, 400 cr, 500 cr budget filmmakers who are being killed by a heart attack called #Kantara collections.”

The Satya director also went to take a dig at big-budget filmmakers without taking names and continued, “Thanks to the DEVIL called @shetty_rishab all big budget film makers will now suddenly keep waking up in the night from the nightmare collections of #Kantara, Like how Shiva keeps walking up to Guliga Daiva.” He signed off by thanking the actor-director for his ‘wonder lesson called #Kantara’ and said, “All film industry people will need to pay you tuition fees.”

Kantara follows the story of a Kambala champion, played by Rishab Shetty, who is at loggerheads with the Forest Range officer, Murali (Kishore). Set in rural coastal Karnataka, it also has Achyuth Kumar and Sapthami Gowda in key roles. Within 17 days of release, it has become one of the most successful Kannada films of all time.

Speaking of the reception to Kantara, Rishab recently told Hindustan Times that he never expected this kind of success. “Initially, we never had plans to dub and release the film in other languages. We thought we will dub the film when it comes on OTT but, after seeing the reception for the Kannada version outside Karnataka, distributors contacted us and wanted to dub and release the film,” he revealed.