After becoming a pan India hit movie Rishab Shetty’s film ‘Kantara’ is all set to start its OTT journey . On Wednesday, taking to Instagram, Amazon Prime along with the director Rishab dropped a poster of the film along with a caption, “putting an end to all the wait!!!#KantaraOnPrime, out tomorrow.”
‘Kantara’ will be streaming on Amazon Prime from November 24 and it will be available in four languages, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. Helmed by Rishab Shetty, ‘Kantara’ was released on September 30 and got a massive response from the audience for its storyline and amazing visuals.
Kantara premiered on Amazon Prime Video in Kannada along with Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu language dubs and English subtitles.
The story of “Kantara” is set around a small community living in the woodlands of Kaadubettu in the southern coastal state of Karnataka. Weaving an interesting plot of human versus nature conflict, where death leads to war between villagers and evil forces and Shiva, a rebel defends his village and nature.
“Audiences from all corners of the country have showered immense love on Kantara. I am extremely excited that with its global digital premiere on Prime Video, we will be able to take our labor of love and hard work to a wider audience worldwide. It is a story that has universal appeal but the plot’s local flavor will keep viewers intrigued until the very end,” the actor-filmmaker said in a statement.
However, hours into its release on OTT, social media was abuzz over changes made to the climax portion of the film. ‘Varaha Roopam’, the song that was instrumental in adding to the cinematic experience of Kantara, and had become hugely popular on YouTube, has been dropped by the makers and replaced with an alternative version. While the lyrics have been retained, the makers have changed the orchestral arrangement and vocals.
Disappointed netizens complained that the new song diluted the viewing experience of the film. Even as #BringBackVarahaRoopam trended on Twitter, audience rued the loss of the original ‘Varaha Roopam’ without which, they said, Kantara had lost its very soul and essence.
Kantara, directed by Rishab Shetty, was a sleeper hit upon its release. Made on a modest budget of ₹15 crore, it was not expected to reach even the ₹100-crore mark, let alone make four times that. On Tuesday afternoon, trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted that the film had crossed the ₹400-crore mark globally in under two months in gross collections. Taran’s tweet also gave a breakdown of the film’s earnings territory-wise.
On Sunday, the film crossed ₹155 crore in net earnings within Karnataka, overtaking the mark set by KGF: Chapter 2 just earlier this year. By Tuesday, the film had earned over ₹160 crore net in Karnataka alone. The dubbed versions of Kantara, which were released two weeks after the initial release, have also been doing well. The Hindi version has net collections of ₹82 crore so far while the Telugu version has earned ₹42 crore.
Kantara is currently the sixth-highest-grossing Indian film of the year. But it is slowly closing in on numbers 5 (Kamal Haasan’s Vikram with ₹414 crore) and 4 (Ranbir Kapoor’s Brahmastra with ₹431 crore).
On the digital release of Kantara, writer, director, and actor Rishab Shetty shared, “Audiences from all corners of the country have showered immense love on Kantara and I am extremely excited that with its global digital premiere on Prime Video we will be able to take our labor of love and hard work to a wider audience worldwide. It is a story that has universal appeal but the plot’s local flavor will keep viewers intrigued until the very end!”