17 June 2023
Hyderabad

As expected, Prabhas-starrer Adipurush is off to a flier, minting Rs 140 crores gross on day one. At the same time, the film became a meme fest with many users on Twitter coming down heavily on its dialogues, VFX, the portrayal of Raavan and some other characters, the way Om Raut interpreted Ramayana among other things. Ramanand Sagar’s son Prem Sagar has also weighed in on the debate, saying director Om Raut has tried to make a Marvel comics film. For those who are unaware, Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, which played on Doordarshan, is often cited as a yardstick among the many adaptations of the great Hindu epic. Prem worked on Ramayan as a co-director.

Amid scathing criticism, Adipurush dialogue writer Manoj Muntashir had come to the defense of the film. In an interview to Aaj Tak, he sought to clear a couple of things. “The film’s name is Adipurush. Firstly, we haven’t made Ramayan; we’ve taken inspiration from it. We said the same thing in the film’s disclaimer. From a marketing point of view, we could’ve easily named it Ramayan but from the beginning, we’ve been heavily inspired by it. We haven’t made Ramayan or Sampoorn Ramayan. We took inspiration from Ramayan’s Yuddha Kanda and showed it in the film,” he stated.

Let’s see if this statement of his will cut ice with fans and the general audience who were disappointed with the way Raut interpreted Ramayana.

The multilingual film, produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Om Raut, Prasad Sutar, Rajesh Nair, Vamsi and Pramod, was released across the nation in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil yesterday.