PremiumSalaar: Director Prashant Neel seeks divine blessings for film’s success
Amid speculation that the Prabhas film has been postponed from its September 28 release date, which has not been confirmed by the team, the filmmaker was spotted with family offering prayers
Last Updated: 06.31 PM, Sep 08, 2023
For reasons best known to Hombale Films, the production house is yet to confirm or deny the fact that its next big production, Salaar: Ceasefire, has been postponed from its September 28 release date. The last post on the banner’s social media page is 6 days old and was a birthday wish for actor Kiccha Sudeep. But based on ‘confirmation’ from reputed trade experts and other industry sources, there’s been a flurry of activity with films across languages realigning their release plans and swooping in to take up the spot supposedly vacated by the Prashant Neel film.
The filmmaker, meanwhile, was believed to be holed up at music director Ravi Basrur’s studio to finalise the post-production, but then rumours emerged that he would not be able to finish the film in time for the September 28 release owing to issues with the VFX work. Delays and quality issues of the graphics are being cited as reasons behind the supposed postponement. Some reports also claim that the team had failed to crack deals for Salaar’s post-theatrical digital rights, although it was reported long ago that Amazon Prime Video had bought the film for an astronomical figure. These reports also state that the stalemate over the sale of the theatrical distribution rights for the Telugu original version is what caused the release date to be pushed.
Amid all this, Prashant and his family were recently spotted at a temple in his ancestral village Neelakantapuram in Andhra Pradesh, were they offered prayers. A video of the same, shows the temple pujari calling out the names of Prashant’s family members, and including Salaar in the prayer for its success. The filmmaker was also seen paying obeisance at his late father’s grave thereafter. Could it be that Prashant has wrapped up the post-production on Salaar after all and is now leaving it up to the audience, with a little divine blessing to go along?
Industry insiders say that there is no way that Hombale Films will stick to the September 28 plans, given that no promotions have begun for the film. To an earlier query about the publicity plan, Chaluve Gowda from Hombale Films had said that it would begin by September 14. Since then, there’s been radio silence from him and his team.