KA – A Potential Comeback For Kiran Abbavaram?

After a series of back-to-back box office disasters, Kiran Abbavaram has announced that he will taking a break from films to re-evaluate his choices and pick better films. Nine months after the release of his last film Rules Ranjann, the actor is back with KA. The teaser of the film was unveiled today on the occasion of his birthday.

Going by the looks of the teaser, KA is a layered period film with shades of science fiction and thriller. The film, set in an unusual village where the sun sets by 3pm, has Kiran Abbavaram portraying a character with shades of grey. KA was reportedly made before the actor decided to take a break, but it already looks a lot better than the recent crop of films the actor featured in.

If you look at Kiran Abbavaram’s career, he started with story-centric films like Raja Vaaru Rani Gaaru and then moved on hero-centric, commercial entertainers like Meter and Rules Ranjann. A glance at the actor’s filmography to date also reveals that the films that worked most in Kiran’s favour are content-oriented films. With KA, it looks like the actor is returning to the kind of cinema that established him in the industry.

Smaller films with strong scripts and unique concepts are also working out big time because the tastes and preferences of the audience evolved a lot over the last few years. People would rather give these films a chance over commercial potboilers.

Earlier this year, on March 8, Vishwak Sen’s Gaami and Gopichand’s Bhimaa hit the theatres. Gaami was an experimental indie film, while Bhimaa was as commercial as it gets. And yet, Gaami walked away with all the critical acclaim and decent theatrical footfalls while Bhimaa ran in near-empty theatres with mixed-to-negative reviews. There is no greater proof of content oriented films working strongly in the B.O. than this.

Of course, execution plays a huge role in deciding which movie becomes a hit, as opposed to mere genre or budget. And nobody is discouraging smaller actors from working in masala entertainers. But commercial films is the very DNA of Telugu cinema.

We grew up watching these films so much that the standards for making a great commercial film is really, really high. Even industry leaders like Boyapati Sreenu and Trivikram are struggling to deliver a solid commercial film these days, because of rising standards and scrutiny. One can only imagine how much harder things can get for lesser known filmmakers trying to make a commercial entertainer with a modest budget and tier-2/tier 3 hero.

On the other hand, the audience is more charitable and welcoming towards films that offer novel concepts and unheard-of narratives. People seem to accept them even when they are not perfect. Kalki 2898 AD, for example, was appreciated widely for its attempt to handle a new genre and visual style in TFI, despite its shortcomings in the writing department. Content-oriented films can also grow easily due to organic marketing methods like word-of-mouth, which is especially helpful when a major star is not headlining the film.

Long story short, a good film will always work irrespective of its genre, scale or star cast. But yardsticks and feasibility depend heavily on genre, scale and the dynamic nature of audience expectations. This is the reason why there will be more hype — good, positive, wholesome hype — for Kiran Abbavaram working in KA than a Meter or a Rules Ranjann.