A glimpse of Dhananjaya as Hoysala’s Gurudev to be revealed on February 5

There’s a lot riding on actor Dhananjaya’s upcoming film Hoysala. The Vijay N directorial is scheduled to be in theatres on March 30, 2023, Dhananjaya’s first release for the year, which comes after a rather lacklustre 2022 that he’s had. Even though the actor had multiple releases – 21 Hours, Thotapuri, Bairagee, Head Bush, Monsoon Raaga and Once Upon a Time in Jamaligudda – none of them worked at the box office. In fact, Head Bush was his second production venture and didn’t work either.

Hoysala was announced early last year, as Dhananjaya’s milestone 25th film and was meant to be a Rajyotsava release. However, the actor’s busy schedules for his other commitments, especially Head Bush, delayed production of Hoysala, following which the team pushed the release ahead to March 30,2023. With a story set in Belagavi, Hoysala has Dhananjaya in cop mode as Gurudev, a senior patrol officer manning a Hoysala in the city. Glimpses of the film had gone viral earlier, when an action sequence shot amid traffic in Belagavi, was mistaken for police brutality. Any more delays in release are unlikely, as the team is kickstarting promotions, with a glimpse of Dhananjaya as Gurudev promised on February 5 at 9.27 am. Hoysala has music by Ajaneesh Loknath, although the team had initially announced that it would be an S Thaman musical.

Hoysala is the second production of KRG Studios, which was only dabbling with distribution earlier. The production house, founded by Karthik Gowda and Yogi G Raj, started filmmaking with Rathnan Prapancha, which had Dhananjaya in the lead. The collaboration was repeated with Hoysala and will be, yet again, for their third production, Uttarakaanda as well. In fact, Uttarakaanda will bring back Rathan Prapancha director Rohit Padaki into the fold and will have actress Ramya making her filmi comeback. This time around, the team is tackling a tale about the gangsters of north Karnataka.