January box-office: A dull start to 2022

The first month of 2022 gave a bad start to the Telugu film industry. In 2021, the January month had witnessed a blockbuster with Ravi Teja’s ‘Krack’ and average hits like ‘Master’, but this year the beginning was not a cheerful one.

Rana starrer ‘1945’ and Aadi Sai Kumar’s ‘Athithi Devobhava’ were the first to hit the theaters in 2022. Both were disasters. None cared to watch them. The Sankranthi period saw the releases of four movies – Bangarraju, Rowdy Boys, Hero, and Super Machi. 

Nagarjuna and Naga Chaitanya’s ‘Bangarraju’ took bumper openings during the festival time but the film could not sustain the momentum. “Akhanda” and “Pushpa” had more than four weeks of the run, “Bangarraju” collapsed at the box office in the first week itself. However, the film is a good hit in Andhra Pradesh. But it flopped big time overseas and Telangana. Overall, it can be considered as an above-average film.

‘Rowdy Boys’ was Dil Raju’s nephew Ashish’s debut film. ‘Hero’ was Mahesh Babu’s nephew Ashok Galla’s launch pad. Neither of them has become hits. But Dil Raju says the film exceeded their expectations and collected good money.

The last weeks of January saw ‘Uniki’ and Keerthy Suresh’s ‘Good Luck Sakhi’ hitting the theaters. None of them made any impact at the box office.

Overall, the first month of 2022 brought nothing but bad luck to the industry.