Remakes were a very safe bet until 5 years ago, when language barriers existed, and when the majority of the population were indifferent to the original film in another language. However, OTT platforms have removed all and any language barriers, with subtitles for all content. This has made the availability and understanding of any original film a lot easier for the audiences, thus diminishing the need for a remake.
Remakes are currently one of the riskiest cinemas to be made, especially if the original was a standout film because no matter how good a remake might be, it would always be compared with the original, and very often, it’s difficult to live up to the original. There are several remakes in the making in Tollywood right now, including Drushyam 2, Maestro, Lucifer, Ayyappanum Koshium, and several others. One remake was recently released on Amazon Prime, and if it’s anything to go by, these films have to be highly exceptional to impress the audiences.
Venkatesh’s Narappa, the remake of the Tamil film Asuran, was released on Amazon Prime a couple of days ago. While Venkatesh and all the other actors have been receiving acclaim for their performances in the film, and Sreekanth Addala is being praised for his direction, Narappa has failed to live up to the exceptional original. Audiences feel that the film couldn’t live up to the original. This could be a major problem for the upcoming remakes as well. It is now to be seen how those remakes would be taken by the audiences.