Rishab Shetty’s Kantara gets a festive TV premiere

Rishab Shetty’s Kantara has had a lot to celebrate in the last few months. For starters, the September 30 release, which came out in Kannada only as it was a rooted, mannina kathe, went on to take the box office across the country by storm, amassing a massive Rs 400 crore from its Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam versions, put together. The film also broke records for highest footfalls in Karnataka for a Hombale Films Production and was dubbed a divine blockbuster.

The film, which came to Amazon Prime Video in late November, began its digital outing at a time when the production house was not allowed to include the Varaha Roopam song in it. There was an ongoing copyright claim case at the time, with Kerala-based band Thaikkudam Bridge claiming that much of the Ajaneesh Loknath composition had been lifted from their five-year-old song, Navarasam. The injunctions were eventually lifted and the song was back, in time for the film’s Hindi version release on Netflix.

Recently, Rishab’s film clocked a successful 100 days at the box office, and, making the occasion even sweeter was the news that it had been accepted to be part of the Academy’s reminder list of 301 movies eligible for voting in 14 Oscar categories. Rishab, we hear, had completed the eligibility criteria, including a seven-day run at a US theatre as mentioned in the Oscar guidelines, before the November deadline.

And now, after a great theatrical and digital run, Kantara is set to come to TV. This Sankranti will be extra special when Rishab’s film, which also stars Sapthami Gowda, Kishore, Achyuth Kumar, Pramod Shetty, Prakash Tumminad, among others, comes to the telly. Kantara’s world television premiere will be on Star Suvarna on January 15 at 6 pm.

Rishab, who had taken a short break after a whirlwind tour of post-release promotions for the film, is believed to be working on the script of his next, which will also be backed by Hombale Films. While it was initially said that he will do Kantara 2, which could be a prequel or sequel, Rishab has not confirmed whether he will revisit the subject so soon. He has, however, excused himself from one acting gig he was committed to – Rakshit Shetty’s Bachelor Party. There is no timeline on Bell Bottom 2 also, as Rishab is busy and his co-star, Hariprriya, is on a break to focus on her wedding with Vasishta N Simha.