Anushka Shetty's "Rudhramadevi" or "Rudrama Devi" and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's "Jazbaa" are set for a grand release on 9 October and they are going to clash with each other at the box office this week.
Written and directed by Gunasekhar, "Rudhramadevi" is a historical film that has been made in Telugu and Tamil and dubbed in Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam. The movie is inspired from the life of Queen Rudrama Devi, one of the prominent rulers of the Kakatiya dynasty in the Deccan Plateau.
Actress Anushka Shetty is seen playing the title role in "Rudhramadevi", which features Allu Arjun, Rana Daggubati, Vikramjeet Virk, Prakash Raj, Krishnam Raju, Nithya Menen, Baba Sehgal and Catherine Tresa. Ilaiyaraaja has composed the music for the movie, while Ajayan Vincent handled cinematography for it.
Made on a budget of Rs 80 crore, "Rudhramadevi" boasts rich production values that are made on par with Hollywood standards. Having been in the production for over two years, the movie has been postponed several times due to technical works. Its promos have soared the viewers' curiosity sky high. Set to release in 2D and 3D formats, the movie has registered massive advance bookings.
"Jazbaa" is a much-awaited and highly-talked about Bollywood action-drama film, which has been hyped a lot due to two main reasons. Firstly, it marks the comeback of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who is returning to the big screen after five years of her last release "Guzaarish". The film-goers are desperate to see her back on-screen.
Secondly, it is a female-centric movie written and directed by Sanjay Gupta, who is known for his multi-starrer movies like "Shootout at Wadala", "Acid Factory", "Shootout at Lokhandwala", "Dus Kahaniyaan" and "Kaante". Talented actors like Irrfan Khan and Shabana Azmi are in the supporting cast, which is one of the factors for the huge hype surrounding the movie.
Another factor can be the story of "Jazbaa", which the makers claim has never been explored in the history of Indian cinema. The movie revolves around the story of leading criminal lawyer Anuradha Verma, whose daughter is abducted. The abductor demands her to defend a rapist and murderer in court to get her daughter back. How she does it will form the crux of the movie?
Both "Rudhramadevi" and "Jazbaa" are woman-oriented movies, which boast of good stories, popular cast, crew and rich production elements. Both are made and released on massive scale and have got good advance bookings. But, the Anushka Shetty starrer is bigger in all aspects than Aishwarya Rai's film and it will top the business charts everywhere this week, say some trade analysts down south.
However, it must be mentioned that Indian cinema is dominated by men and the power of a hero decides the fate of a film at the box office every week. Its history has many instances for the clash of two superstars' movies. But, it hardly has any example of a clash between two female-dominated movies featuring two powerful actresses. Probably, this is the first time in the history.
