Kantara: Tulu version of Rishab Shetty’s film finally gets a release date

Way back in September, before Kantara released in theatres, when actor-director Rishab Shetty spoke about the film releasing in Kannada only, with sprinklings of Tulu too, given how rooted the story is, the Tulu-speaking belt of Karnataka had one request – to dub the entire film in Tulu. At the time, a fan-made poster for a Tulu version of Kantara did the rounds, which Rishab shared on his social media pages, giving fans hope that he would dub the film after all.

Subsequently, though, when the Kannada film became a big hit, it was the Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam dubbed versions that were prioritised and released within two weeks of the original. Around that time, Shanil Guru, who played Bulla in the film, had told the Times of India that he was overseeing the dubbing work on the Tulu version. And yet, it is only now that the makers, Hombale Films have announced a release date for this version.

The Tulu version, according to Hombale Films, will be in theatres on December 2 in India. It will open in the overseas market tomorrow, though. There’s been no explanation about the delay, given that the film in all its versions has already amassed Rs 400 crore and accounted for record-breaking footfalls. Leading man Rishab Shetty jet-setting across the country to promote the film could not have caused the delay, as Shanil had explained that Arjun Kapikad would be dubbing for Shiva’s character.

Meanwhile, after a lot of speculation surrounding the OTT debut of Kantara, the film finally dropped on Amazon Prime Video today, in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The film has been released on the platform without the controversial Varaha Roopam song, which is in a copyright tussle. Instead, the makers have recorded another version of the song, cut the length of the sequence and released the film on OTT. The Hindi version of the film has been sold to Netflix. The streamer is yet to announce a release date.