Exclusive! Never announce a release date before shooting the film, says Dhananjaya

Head Bush – The Rise and Rise of Bengaluru, which is the first instalment in the MP Jayaraj biopic, releases in theatres today. The film, which lead actor Daali Dhananjaya’s second home production, had a delayed start to its pre-release promotions, which had prompted fans to take to social media and request him to postpone it to another date allowing him time to publicize it better. We asked Dhananjaya about this when OTTplay met him for a conversation about the impending release, considering that he had the liberty to take that decision as the producer of the film. His films Once Upon A Time in Jamaligudda and Hoysala were also pushed from their original release dates.

“Honestly, I don’t like pushing a film ahead after announcing a release date. But then, with Head Bush, we had announced the date and only after that I realized that we should not have done it. There are too many practical difficulties in filmmaking and not everything will turn out the way we hope. We may plan certain things, but something else will happen. For instance, what can we do if rain hampers schedules? When we were in Mysuru for Hoysala, no shoot happened because it was raining continuously. We weren’t able to resume shooting for almost a month. My learning from the making of Head Bush is that until a film is at a certain stage, no announcement regarding its release date should be made. We struggled a lot to meet this deadline with Head Bush. Truth be told, we had very little time to make the film. We thought we could make it quickly at a certain pace, but it didn’t turn out like that. And that puts a lot of pressure on the team. If your project is complete and then plan the release, I think you will enjoy the process better,” says Dhananjaya.