This 'Don' failed to captivate viewers

In the last six years, no other Malayalam top grosser, on a year on year basis, has managed to come close to this 2019 release titled 'Lucifer'. Directed by Prithviraj Sukumaran, the young Turk of Kerala filmdom who made his directorial debut with this trilogy venture, 'Lucifer' touched an impressive high of nearly Rs 130 crore as its all-time collections globally, with a dubbed version released in Telugu also. In contrast, as per data available in the public domain, the 2022 top grosser ' Bheeshma Parvam' with Mammotty in the lead has just managed to collect Rs 87 crore in all. Surprisingly, megastar's home company and a few others decided to remake it in Telugu despite it having had a great run in the OTT circles and watched by the local audience with subtitles for over three years before the Telugu reprisal got released in October 2022.

The build-up, as expected, was excellent and with Salman Khan playing a cameo, which was done by Prithviraj in Malayalam, the fans were awaiting a lavish treat onscreen. The script too was by and large faithful to the original, with the story of an indefatigable Godfather kind of a hero, who has multiple identities but stays on the right course to prevent the evil guys like drug mafias and corrupt politicians from messing with his family.

It had all the ingredients to match the swag of Chiranjeevi, who was returning to the big screen after a disastrous release of his named 'Acharya' in early 2022. The super hero build-ups, unbelievable action sequences and the barely registered presence of Salman Khan who sleepwalked through his role turned out to be the usual fare ultimately for his fans, who have seen him do this for more than three decades and in 150 earlier films of his.

This has been the last released remake from Mollywood in this new millennium which has had nearly 50 official remakes from Kerala cinema, which has become yet another source for picking up commercial content for the local banners. True to form, the masala moghuls have tried out various themes from slapstick comedy, horror dramas and socio-political stories which had succeeded in Kerala and its markets. The remake success ratio has just been average – at barely 50 per cent - on an overall assessment, if one looks closely, as this columnist attempted in his research. Yet, the hunt for hitting the bull's eye will continue as long as film banners think they can quickly repackage a hit remake for a new market and rake in the big bucks, effortlessly. If only it was so simple…