Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare on OTT: Campus caper is a streaming hit as well

Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare, a comedy about events unfolding in a boys-only hostel over one night, had an interesting promotional campaign, which piqued the interest of audiences well before it hit theatres. Even actor-filmmaker Rakshit Shetty was bowled over by the content and put the might of his production house Paramvah Studios behind the team to present it in theatres. Despite all the positive buzz surrounding it, though, Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare still had a mammoth task ahead of it – that of bringing audiences back to theatres. After a dismal first half of the year for Kannada cinema, there was no guarantee that people would throng cinema halls to watch a film by a team of newcomers, starring newbies as well. To add to this, the film was releasing along with biggies like Oppenheimer and Barbie.

After brief moments of tension when actress Ramya filed an injunction against the team to stop its release over a dispute about her cameo in the film, Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare managed to meet its date with audiences and, as luck would have it, their efforts were rewarded as positive word-of-mouth spread. In its theatrical run, Hostel Hudugaru amassed a tad over Rs 10 crore, which was a big deal for them. Encouraged by the response to the film in Kannada, they then decided to dub it in Telugu and release it there too, but that didn’t have the desired result, following which it came on OTT.

Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare on OTT: Here’s why Nithin Krishnamurthy’s directorial debut is a must-watch 

Turns out, Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare is a hit on OTT as well. Streamer Zee5 Kannada has just announced that the film has clocked a whopping 100 million streaming minutes, which is a major feat for a film like this. Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare’s biggest draw according to audiences, was its comedy, with Nithin’s film driven by its funny dialogues. The story revolves around the death of the warden of a hostel, and a note he’d left behind naming a few students. How they try to wriggle out of this situation forms the crux of the movie.

Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare review: Self-aware, superbly inventive, but not in its entirety