The Five Films That Missed Sankranthi 2023

So far we have Tollywood’s 2023 planned quite well for the first month as major biggies are targeting the Sankranthi festival season. Megastar Chiru’s Waltair Veerayya and Nandamuri Balakrishna’s Veera Simha Reddy are confirmed for a grand release with a day’s gap on Jan 12/13, and then two dubbing films, Vijay’s Varasudu and Ajith’s Thunivu are most likely to hit cinemas along with them. However, there are these big five films that were actually targeted for the festival but missed the date.

First comes Prabhas’ Adipurush which is originally set for a massive release on Jan 12, 2023. Though all the arrangements are made almost 8 months ago to facilitate this film’s release in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada, the makers faced huge backlash regarding the VFX quality of the film after the teaser of Adipurush was released. That led to the postponement of the movie to Summer now. While the case of Adipurush is like this, other movies that targeted Sankranthi 2023 haven’t even completed the shoot.

First, we have Pawan Kalyan’s Hara Hara Veera Mallu that is being carved by Krish, and with the Janasena president’s non-availability for the shoot, this film, originally scheduled for Sankranthi release, missed the date now. And then, no one knows when the shooting will get wrapped and when will it might release. At the same time, Ram Charan and Shankar’s #RC15 was also started with an intent to release the film for Pongal only. Though the mega hero wrapped RRR and back to Shankar’s shoot, the director kept this project on pause for a while as he has to shoot Indian 2.

Another hugely delayed film that hasn’t even completed a schedule of shoot is none other than #SSMB28. The original plan of Trivikram and Mahesh is that they will wrap the shooting in 2022 itself and bring the film for January 2023 release. Looks like, the film might get wrapped and released only for Dasara next year if we have to go by the pace at which they are cooking it. At the same time, though Megastar’s Waltair Veerayya is coming to theatres on Sankranthi eve, it was Bhola Shankar that went to shooting first, and that film was supposed to release for the festival. But it looks like Megastar changed the total plan.

One wonders what if Adipurush, Hari Hara Veera Mallu, #RC15, #SSMB28 and Bhola Shankar have all stuck to the original plan and targeted the same Sankranthi 2023. That would have been Diwali on Sankranthi.