Will Kabzaa's box office decide the fate of Kabzaa 2?

There's no denying that pre-release promotions of Kabzaa have been a hot-and-cold affair. Ever since the release date of the film was announced, fans have implored director/producer R. Chandru and the rest of the team to amp up the publicity, considering that the film held the potential of being the "next KGF 2". However, team Kabzaa stuck to its routine and bland ways of promoting the film with Upendra, the film's main star, making sporadic and obligatory appearances and the other big attraction of the film, Kiccha Sudeep, distancing himself from the promotions almost completely.

Shriya Saran, the female lead of the film, has been the mainstay all along as far as the pre-release publicity is concerned but one could infer that since she is quite popular in the Hindi and Telugu film industries, the 'pan-India' word could be easily spread through her.

Another highlight of this promotional stint is the reluctance with which the makers speak about Kabzaa 2. While R. Chandru and others have referred to the continuation of the story through a potential sequel, it is quite apparent at this point that the project is still very much "in development". This could mean one of two things: either R. Chandru wants to be a surprise announcement and one could expect this to arrive in the climax portion of Kabzaa. Or, the team is hoping that the upcoming film does well at the box office at any cost so that they can expand the franchise.

In his recent interaction with the print media, Upendra shared that R. Chandru wants the Shiva Rajkumar character to lead into Kabzaa 2 but when it came to the actual development of the sequel, the Real Star dodged all the important questions. Though he did not discard or confirm the idea, he still seemed quite wary of discussing Kabzaa 2 at a public forum. 

When OTTplay questioned Upendra whether Kabzaa's storyline would have an 'abrupt' or unfinished conclusion so that Kabzaa 2 could take off from there, the actor refrained from discussing that either.

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Kabzaa runtime: Netizens wonder if R Chandru’s film is too short for effective story-telling 

Kabzaa, which releases worldwide on March 17th, runs up to about 2 hours and 16 minutes in duration, which seems pretty short for a large-canvas period gangster film. KGF: Chapter 1 boasted a runtime of 2 hours and 35 minutes and it was clear all along (as suggested by the 'Chapter 1' in the title) that the film will only be concluded in the subsequent part(s) - so, in light of these factors, is it almost obvious that a Kabzaa 2 is imperative? Let's find out.