Sriimurali’s Bagheera and Priyanka Upendra’s Ugravatara headed into a very crowded Deepavali box office

This Deepavali, there are two Kannada films that will vie for a share of the box office. As of now, there are at least 7 other major festive film releases, which means that there will be tough fight ahead for each of the movies. As of now, it is Roaring Star Sriimurali’s action thriller Bagheera and Priyanka Upendra’s cop thriller Ugravatara that have joined the long list of Deepavali releases.

Initially, it was Century Star Shivarajkumar’s daughter Niveditha who had blocked the festive date for her debut production, Firefly. But following the confusion about when Shivarajkumar’s Bhairathi Ranagal, Upendra’s UI and Kiccha Sudeep’s Max would hit theatres, Niveditha decided to bow out of this race. While she is looking at releasing the film in December, she has not announced a new date yet.

The buzz in industry circles, then, was that UI, which is Upendra’s return to direction, was targeting Deepavali, so that there would be a two-week gap with Bhairathi Ranagal, which has been fixed for November 15. But before the team could announce the same, Hombale Films swooped in unannounced and took everyone by surprise with Bagheera slotted for October 31. This meant that UI had to be pushed further, and they have now decided to release on December 20.

Although Upendra was out of the Deepavali equation, his wife Priyanka wasn’t, with the makers of her cop thriller Ugravatara deciding to release the Kannada-Telugu bilingual on November 1. The problem with these release dates is that unlike Dasara, which did not have too many films in theatre, Deepavali is a festival that all industries like and the major competition is from Bollywood, Tamil and Telugu cinema, all of which have major markets in Karnataka.

On October 31, joining Bagheera are Dulquer Salmaan’s Lucky Bhaskar, Kiran Abbavaram’s KA, Satyajith and Dhananjaya’s Zebra, Sivakarthikeyan’s Amaran and Kavin’s Bloody Beggar. None of these films have listed a Kannada dubbed version as part f their release plan yet.

The following day, it is the big Hindi films that join in, with Karthik Aryan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and the multi-starrer Singham Again, which has Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff and Deepika Padukone on the cast.

This mega battle for screens/shows will be a major challenge for both Bagheera and Ugravatara, given that Kannada films have been struggling to get a decent share, with big film from other industries often prioritised by exhibitors. In Bagheera’s case, Hombale Films will really have to pull all its might to ensure that the screen/show allocation for the film is appropriate.