How team behind Kannada film Premada Ooralli scripted its success story

From day two, however, the footfall started going up. Vehicles never seen at the parking lot in the 16 years of the theatre’s existence — big trucks and tractors filled with people — started pulling up, the crowd eager to see a movie that “represented their lives”.

The Kannada film Premada Oorali is a family drama set in a village. The story revolves around a father-son duo, whose lives take an unexpected turn when an unconventional daughter-in-law joins the family, challenging societal norms.

“This is a miracle. The last time we saw such crowds was years ago. Now, we are seeing housefull shows almost every day,” says Shashidhar.

The film has also been released in Telugu, as Premane Oorilo, and is said to be doing well.

The audience approval

Made on a shoestring budget of less than four crores (including cost of promotions), collections for the Kannada film have crossed Rs 60 crore across India (as on Wednesday, October 14).

So what explains the success of Premada Oorali?

Is it the first of its kind film with a rural background? No. Is it a fabulously made film? Not quite. It is over-the-top and could have done with greater nuance. But the audience has given its verdict. “You cannot argue with the audience. Or question their judgement,” says the film’s director Manoj Kumar.

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Jagadish (identified by first name only), manager of the 40-year-old Annapoorna theatre in Chikkamagaluru district’s Kadur town, recalls the last time they saw similar crowds was for Raajakumara (2017) and the Baahubali franchise (2015 and 2017). “Ours is the only theatre in a 35-kilometre radius and there is tremendous footfall.”

To outsiders, the success of the film might seem like a fluke. But Manoj Kumar and producer Devendra, whose first venture together Akshi (2021), had won the 67th National Award for Best Kannada Film, knew they were on to something special with Premada Ooralli, shot in villages near Belur and Halebidu, in Haasan district.

“Akshi was made for the festival circuit. For Premada, both my producer and I [they co-wrote the story] were clear from day one who our target audience was. We wanted to make a story high on emotion and nostalgia and the concept of family. We expected it to do well, but this level of success is a very, very pleasant surprise. It only shows that when people connect with a film, they do their bit to promote it,” says Manoj.

Many, both in the industry and outside, did not see the Premada wave gathering force, because the team’s publicity did not follow the usual route. “Manoj and I are the strategists too and I think one thing we did differently was that we did not wait to finish the film before wondering how to promote it. I decided we would do the non-traditional, hyper-local route — pamphlets, well-made reflective stickers on 20,000 autos in district headquarters and taluks, tying no-parking sign boards with our film name and sending out cycles bearing the film’s name in Bengaluru, Mysuru and Hubbali districts. And, we knew we had to target single-screen theatres,” says Devendra, who also does advertising work.

Having a hit on their hands

The original budget of the film had been Rs one crore, but later Devendra and Manoj decided they had to give the film the budget it needed. “When a veteran actor like Rangayana Raghu sir [who is part of the cast] liked the story, we were confident. We started collecting additional funds from friends and relatives. We wanted our content to speak for itself; we wanted the music (Sunaad Gowtham) to seep into people’s minds before the movie was released [they released the teaser with snatches of the title song in March and Instagram reels did the rest]. Sunaad wanted to record the title song with children’s voices, and that worked out well," says Devendra.

Harish Arasu from Chikkamagaluru, who handled the public relations initiatives for the film, says the team worked silently and was ready when they had to scale up — the film went from 50-odd shows on day one across Karnataka to around 2000 shows in its third week. “Places that had not seen a house-full board in years are struggling to control the teeming crowds. In places such as Kalaburgi, Bidar, Gadag and Belagavi, people are heading to theatres after decades, sometimes going ahead of time if there's no online booking option available. We have heard of such things happening in the past, not now,” he says with a smile.

On October 14, the 20th day of the film’s release, booking platform BookMyShow reported 6,450 tickets being sold every hour.

Manoj claims it is the repeat audience which is driving Premada Ooralli’s success. “Once the audience feels the heartbreak and the tears and the joy, they go back to experience those emotions yet again, though they know exactly what happens when,” he says.

Made for the rural audience, middle class

The cast of the film is a huge draw — Rangayana Raghu, Shree Raam, Tapaswini Poonacha and Ramika Shivu. Manoj was very particular that they would not make tall claims during pre-release — “We just wanted to invite the audience with love,” he says.

While it is common for filmmakers now to factor in music, OTT and satellite deals while estimating earnings from films and allotting budget, the Premada team says they wanted to recover investment from theatres alone. And the people who made that dream come true are the rural audience. “In a long while, cinema has not been made to cater to them. They felt it was their story and welcomed it. The film also shows it is possible to make magic happen even with a nominal budget,” says Devendra.

Adds Manoj: “An action film is easier to make than to write and direct an emotional drama set in a village. What I’ve realised is that it is okay to say something in a simple manner. I took a year to simplify the writing, because if people struggle to understand a scene, they will miss out on the next one. Appealing to the heart is more difficult than appealing to the brain.”

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Outside of Karnataka, the film, according to sources, is also doing well across the state’s borders, in Pune and Mumbai in Maharashtra and some places in Telangana and Tamil Nadu, as well as in overseas markets like the US, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Australia, UK and Ireland.

Veteran distributor Jayanna, who handled the film’s business in single screens across Karnataka from the fourth day of its release, says Premada’s greatest strength is that it clicked with the middle class. “Even those who have now moved away from their middle-class lives were once there. There is the nostalgia factor and you cannot ignore that,” he sums up.