During the classical age of Telugu cinema, when directors like KV Reddy were at the helm, with legends like NTR, ANR, and Savitri headlining projects, films were longer than three hours, something that we still pride ourselves on. However, those days have been long gone. And while Telugu and Indian cinema still holds on to the age-old format of films being at least as long as 2 hours 30 minutes, the runtimes are getting shorter.
Audiences are not willing to sit for hours together in theatres to watch a movie anymore, preferring to be elsewhere, spending their time on other activities. As such, it’s taking a lot to jeep audiences in theatres for three hours, and this is happening only with those films that are being made on an epic scale and vision. At a time like this, it is to be wondered if audiences will show the same fervor towards watching films that are almost as long as three hours when the film belongs to a light-hearted genre.
Natural Star Nani’s Ante Sundaraniki has a runtime of 2 hours 56 minutes, and questions are being raised over whether or not the audiences would sit through the entire film.