Why isn't Kantara a 'pan-India' film? Here's Rishab Shetty with an apt response...

Kantara is ruling the hearts of moviegoers across the world and has stood tall as a bona fide Kannada film. In an era governed by the pan-India phenomenon, the makers of Kantara chose to release the film in Kannada alone and not dub it into other languages for the sake of a wider release. While this strategy has fetched them great box office results, many have wondered about the intent to not produce and release dubbed versions across the country.

For writer-director Rishab Shetty, however, the reason behind the decision is quite simple and that has to do with the unequal distribution of the dubbed versions. Speaking about the same at the recent press event, Rishab shared:

"The idea of a pan-India film is to dub it in multiple languages and release it all over. But when they dub films of other languages in Kannada and release them here (Karnataka), I have observed that they release is measly 4-5 shows across Bengaluru. The tag, however, given to those films is of a 'pan-India' film but they don't reach audiences of all regions. But you'll find more shows of our Kannada film (Kantara) in Chennai and each of them is running houseful - I've been even getting appreciation phone calls from the Tamil film industry. So, when you release a film exclusively in Kannada across the world, I feel it comes as a value addition to our language."

Rishab Shetty's statement can also be seen as a dig at the lopsided distribution of pan-India films in Karnataka. Previously, Kannada cinema patrons have expressed annoyance over the lack of a sufficient number of Kannada shows of films like Pushpa: The Rise, RRR, Vikram, Brahmastra - Part One: Shiva, and many other pan-Indian projects and even urged fellow moviegoers on social media to boycott the films.

Coming to Kantara, the Hombale Films venture is well on course to end up as a major commercial success. The film has gone past the Rs. 30 crore mark at the global box office and is looking strong to reap bigger rewards in the coming days.

Kantara box office collection Day 3: Rishab Shetty starrer looks unstoppable; worldwide collections nearing Rs. 30 crores