Kabzaa on OTT: Prime Video to stream Upendra, Sudeep and Shivarajkumar starrer gangster flick on THIS date?

The countdown to the next big pan-India film from Sandalwood – Kabzaa – has begun. Director- producer R Chandru’s film, which has Real Star Upendra in the lead and boasts pivotal cameos by two other superstars – Kiccha Sudeep and Shivarajkumar – will be in theatres on March 17. The film, which Chandru has produced under his Sri Siddeshwara Enterprise, along with Alankar Pandian’s Invenio Origin, was sold to Amazon Prime video, prior to its theatrical release. Right now, the streamer holds the rights to the Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam versions, but it is likely to acquire the Hindi version too.

The question now, of course, is, how soon after the theatrical release will Amazon make the film available? In the case of other big films from Kannada, like KGF-2 and Kantara, it was well beyond the 50-day mark, but then Kranti was on the platform even before the 30th day. Well, a source tells us that the deal with Prime Video is for on or before 30 days, which means, Kabzaa may drop on the platform by April 15. If the trailer is anything to go by, Chandru is promising a mega visual experience on the big screen, so the first viewing will be best in a theatre.

Kabzaa is Chandru’s tribute to the late Puneeth Rajkumar. The film has been inspired by KGF, as far as the making style goes, but the story, claims the filmmaker, is entirely different and spans a time period between the 1940s and the 80s. To make it look and sound a lot like KGF, he’s got cinematographer AJ Shetty, art director Shiva Kumar, and music director Ravi Basrur on board, all of who have worked on the former. The filmmaker is apparently looking at presenting Kabzaa as a two-film project, with the first coming out next week.