Major pre-release event for Puneeth Rajkumar's James on Sunday in Bengaluru; official confirmation, guest list today

A hero is the face of a commercial fil m and for James, sadly, that’s missing, a void that is impossible to fill, director Chethan Kumar told OTTplay recently. But the team of the film is going all out to ensure that the release of the late Puneeth Rajkumar’s last commercial film is as grand as possible, with the right amount of buzz created around it. In fact, earlier today, news broke that the team will have a major pre-release event at the Bengaluru Palace Grounds on Sunday.

When we called Chethan to confirm the same, he said plans were afoot but that the date and time could only be confirmed later today after a meeting with Puneeth’s brother and actor Shivarajkumar. “There will most definitely be a pre-release event for Appu sir’s film, the where, when, etc., will be confirmed officially today,” said Chethan.

Produced by Kishore Pathikonda, James marks Chethan’s fourth directorial and his first with the Power Star. Puneeth was in the process of winding up the film when he passed away tragically in October last year. In the time since, Chethan and the rest of the technical team has been working at breakneck speed to put the film together and release it on the late actor’s birthday as a tribute to him and a special treat to his fans.

With the films set to release in five languages – Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Malayalam – composer V Harikrishna stepped in to do the re-recording of music man Charanraj’s BGM for the various versions. “Harikrishna sir has worked with Appu sir on many films and assured us that he would have the re-recording of the film ready in time and that we could go ahead and announce its five- language release,” added Chethan.

James, which paired Puneeth with his Raajakumara co-star Priya Anand yet again, also has Shivarajkumar and Raghavendra Rajkumar in cameos, which were canned after the Power Star’s demise. Shivarajkumar has also dubbed for Puneeth.