PremiumToby: Will a lucky few get to see Raj B Shetty’s revenge drama on August 24?
Basil AL Chalakkal’s directorial debut, which is based on a story by TK Dayanand that Raj rewrote for the screen, is headed to theatres on August 25
Last Updated: 09.29 AM, Aug 24, 2023
In 2021, when Raj B Shetty released his film Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana, he conducted a celebrity screening days prior to its official release, as well as several paid premieres the previous evening, where he spent a few minutes each with audiences and left to head to the next hall. Cut to now, with only 24 hours to go for the theatrical outing of Raj's next, Toby , there is no sign of any such show. A few days ago, when the advance bookings of the film opened, OTTplay had spoken to Mohan Suprith, the business head of KVN Productions, which is distributing the film, about the release plan. At the time, Suprith was hopeful of having a few shows on August 24, but those plans stand cancelled as of now.
Read also: Raj B Shetty on Toby: My intention was always to make a good film; not just a good Kannada film
We checked in with Suprith this morning, and he confirmed that it is highly unlikely that they can pull off premiere shows today. “The content is just getting uploaded as we speak. This will take a few hours and then some more to link it to theatres. At the moment, it looks impossible to have premiere shows. Our best bet is that Toby’s first screening will be on August 25 only,” he told us. The last-minute rush, according to the team is because of how quickly Toby went from inception to execution and release in only a few months. Earlier this week, when we spoke to music composer Midhun Mukundan, he was still working on the final mix of Toby, as well as the Malayalam film Ramachandra Boss & Co, which is also an August 25 release.
In fact, in an interview with OTTplay, Raj had also explained that the reason he and his team had not flooded the public space with promotional content is because of this paucity of time, as any such material would have to be of a certain quality and putting that together, while also working on the film would be added stress on the crew.