Kannada activists and Puneeth Rajkumar fans take down RRR posters pasted over those of James

The drama surrounding the release of SS Rajamouli’s RRR in Karnataka is not likely to die down soon. On Thursday, Kannada activists and fans of the late Puneeth Rajkumar were enraged when they saw RRR posters pasted over those of James at select movie halls in Bengaluru. They, of course, wasted no time in taking these posters down, visuals of which went viral on social media.

This comes shortly on the heels of #BoycottRRR trending on social media, as the Ram Charan-NTR Jr magnum opus had no shows of its Kannada version for a long time after advance bookings opened. On March 23, a select few theatres finally opened bookings for a Kannada version. Twitterati, of course, was enraged by this as the RRR pre-release event had been attended by Kannada star Shivarajkumar, who had requested the distributors to bring as many Kannada shows of it as possible.

When #BoycottRRR broke out, KVN Productions, which is distributing the film in Karnataka was quick to say that theatre owners were reluctant to play the Kannada version and that they were working on convincing them to take it up. Amid all this, the team of the late Puneeth Rajkumar’s film James also began a campaign to save his last commercial movie, as it was set to face the onslaught of the RRR takeover. Director Chethan Kumar, in a video message, had requested exhibitors to retain the film for a second week, stating that even in centres where James was doing well, it was being removed to make way for the big-ticket releases of the week, as well as for The Kashmir Files.

As soon as the RRR poster vandalizing came to light, though, team James said it had nothing to do with it.