Agnyaathavaasi
Agnyaathavaasi is a 2018 Indian Telugu-language action drama film written and directed by Trivikram Srinivas. Produced by S. Radha Krishna, the film stars Pawan Kalyan, Aadhi Pinisetty, Keerthy Suresh and Anu Emmanuel. The music was composed by Anirudh Ravichander, marking his debut in Telugu cinema, with cinematography by Manikandan.
Govinda "Vindha" Bhargav, a powerful businessman, receives news of his younger son Mohan Bhargav's death in a car accident while in Italy. Soon after, assassins enter his hotel room, and one of them holds up a phone. On the other end, Vindha's friends Sarma and Varma reveal that they orchestrated his son's death and plan to take over his empire. Vindha secretly records this conversation before being killed by the gunmen. The news of Vindha's death reaches his second wife, Indrani Bhargav, who discovers the audio file of Vindha's alleged killers. She contacts Appaji, the brother of Vindha's deceased first wife Krishnaveni, to summon an unknown person. Appaji informs the unknown person, who is revealed to be Abhishikth Bhargav, Vindha's eldest son. After performing his father's last rites in Varanasi, Abhi travels from Assam to Hyderabad, where his father's possible killers live. He gets a job in his father's company under the pseudonym Balasubramanyam and befriends Sukumari, Varma's daughter, and Suryakantham, Sarma's secretary.
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Principal photography began on 3 April 2017 with a small coffee shop scene, shot at Ciclo Cafe, then moved to a special set erected in Ramoji Film City for an action sequence. Some parts of the film were shot in Annapurna Studios and a major sequence and a song were shot in Bangkok. The unit moved to Bulgaria on 26 October 2017 for 15 days to shoot two songs. After the foreign schedule, shooting continued in Hyderabad and was completed by the end of November 2017, including a brief period of shooting at Varanasi. After the film, Kalyan actively began his political campaign for the 2019 Andhra Pradesh election.
The soundtrack was composed by Anirudh Ravichander, making his Telugu debut. The first song, "Baitikochi Chusthe", was unveiled on 1 January 2018, the birthday of director Trivikram Srinivas.
The film was released on 10 January 2017. It was then later released on Sun NXT for digital streaming, and the satellite rights are owned by Gemini TV. It was later dubbed and released in Hindi as Yevadu 3 on YouTube and aired on Sony Max by Goldmines Telefilms on 20 December 2018. It was also dubbed in Malayalam as Yuvarajavu which was aired on Surya TV & in Tamil as Maraivaasi which was aired on Sun TV.
Critical reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 17% of 6 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.5/10. Times of India critic Neeshita Nayapati gave the film 2.5/5 stars, noting, "Despite all the pomp and show, Agnyaathavaasi, has been an amazing ride had it either been taken seriously or been made with the same old Trivikram-Pawan Kalyan touch. Pawan Kalyan aces through his role as usual. In his review for The Indian Express, Manoj Kumar R stated, "It is strictly for fans of Power Star as Trivikram has spent the entire runtime gushing over Pawan Kalyan." Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu wrote: "The film is beautifully shot (cinematography by Manikandan) and Anirudh Ravichander comes up with refreshing music that gives a classy sheen to this urban masala film. But these aren't enough to salvage the film.
Box office
The film grossed ₹60.5 crore (equivalent to ₹81 crore or US$8.4 million in 2023) on its opening day and recorded one of the biggest ever openers for not just a Telugu film, but a South Indian film as a whole. Despite the opening, the film suffered heavy drops post its opening day, with empty footfalls appearing within its opening weekend. Despite attempts to revive the cinema, which included posting a cameo of Venkatesh in the film, it ultimately never recovered and only went to gross over roughly ₹95 crore. While the budget was only around ₹70 crore, the film's pre-release theatrical business was sold for roughly ₹125 crore, the second highest ever for an Indian film, and it ultimately ended its run with a distributor's share of less than ₹60 crore, meaning it wasn't even able to recover half it's target.
French director Jérôme Salle alleged that the film was plagiarised from his 2008 film Largo Winch. Following this, T-Series, which owns the remake rights of Largo Winch, sent a legal notice to the makers of the film, asking for the censored copy of the film. It was later reported that T-Series was demanding ₹15 crore (equivalent to ₹20 crore or US$2.1 million in 2023) from the makers of Agnyaathavaasi for allegedly violating copyright. The agreement between Agnyaathavaasi makers and T-Series management was amicably closed after the makers agreed to compensate them after taking into consideration that though the director had not taken the entire plotline of Largo Winch, he had written a few key scenes of Agnyaathavaasi based on scenes from the French film.
