Remake mania for Darshan

Darshan’s Porki directed by MD Sridhar has received a mixed response in the state. While in centers strong for Darshan like Mysore, Mandya and Davanagere, the collections have been very good over the weekend. But the collections in other centers have not been encouraging compared to the huge cost involved in making this film. Trade pundits are not surprised over the mixed reports to Porki which is a remake of Telugu blockbuster film Pokiri starring Mahesh Babu.
“The fact is that the Mahesh Babu starrer created a big record for Telugu films even in Karnataka and its Tamil and Hindi versions Pokiri and Wanted respectively have had a good run in many centres. Since Porki is a carbon copy of the original film, there have been some lukewarm reactions in some centres,” says a trade analyst who feels that time is running out for Kannada remakes for non-Kannada superhits.
But there is an exception here. Puneet Raj Kumar’s Raam, a remake of Telugu hit Ready, is doing fantastic business all over the state and may even turn out to be the Power Star’s biggest hit. “Ready had a little known actor like Raam and the film was not as successful as Pokiri. Even when Puneet did Ajay, a remake of Telugu film Okkudu starring Mahesh Babu, the expectations were high, but the film did not do very well at the box office’ says a film distributor.
To be fair to Darshan, he had made it very clear to the producers of Porki that many sequences of Pokiri have already been lifted in numerous Kannada films and they should look for another strong script. But the producers trusted the script of Pokiri. Now, Darshan is working in two other remakes. The first is an untitled film which is a remake of Telugu film Shouryam. The second one is a remake of Telugu hit Athadu which had Mahesh Babu in the lead. Somehow Darshan’s faith in remakes has not proved successful except for films like Gaja.
Darshan is now working in Sarathi, based on a story written by his brother Dinakar. The shooting for the film’s second schedule will start on February 15. A new girl Deepa from Chickmagalur has been chosen to play the heroine.