A very busy April in Sandalwood, as multiple Kannada films line up for release

Three months of the new Year have already gone by and after the spectacular year that Kannada cinema had in the national market, this quarter has been abysmal. The big-ticket releases were meant to be Darshan’s Kranti and Upendra’s multi-starrer Kabzaa, and while the former opted out of the pan-India race, the latter failed miserably at making a mark. A few smaller films released and didn’t click at the box office, but found favour after the OTT release, like, for instance, Orchestra, Mysuru! The first quarter was then closed out by Dhananjaya, who brought his milestone 25th film to theatres on March 30. The film has received rave reviews, but the box office business has not been commensurate. Industry insiders hope that it will get better by the weekend.

While Sandalwood’s hopes are now pinned on films like Martin, Sapta Sagaradaache Ello, Ghost, among others, none of them will come out in the near future. April is looking very busy for Kannada cinema, with a slew of films lined up for release, but whether they will find favour with audiences remains a different story.

The first week of April has four confirmed releases so far. There is the Guru Deshpande curated anthology Pentagon, Hemanth Hegde’s comedy Nam Naani Madve Prasanga, Prajwal Devaraj’s action flick Veeram and Thej’s Ramachari 2.0. The April 14 week, then, has Ramesh Aravind’s Shivaji Surathkal: The Mysterious Case of Mayavi and Komal Kumar’s comedy Undenama. The April 21 week is still open for Kannada films, while Vijay Raghavendra’s Raaghu has booked April 28. Industry insiders reckon that the total number of Kannada films in April could go up to 10. There are big-ticket releases from other industries hitting theatres in April, like, for instance, Ravi Teja’s Ravanasura, Sai Dharam Tej’s Virupaksha, Akhil Akkineni’s Agent, Samantha’s Shakunthalam, Kiran Abbavaram’s Meter and Ponniyin Selvan 2, among many others.