Mohanlal is returning with his highly anticipated film, Drishyam 3, tomorrow. Unfortunately, the movie has failed to generate any significant buzz in Telugu and the other languages it is releasing in, with the sole exception of Malayalam. Despite the immense popularity of the franchise, the lack of pre-release hype has severely impacted its initial momentum.
The irony is that apart from urban film enthusiasts, rural audiences are completely unaware of the film’s Telugu release due to this lack of visibility. The promotional team merely released the Telugu trailer as a formality and completely skipped offline promotions. It almost feels as though they are uninterested in marketing the film, which is baffling given that it belongs to such a massive franchise.
Advance bookings for the Telugu version are incredibly poor, suggesting that the makers are heavily relying on positive word-of-mouth to rescue the box office numbers. It remains to be seen how this minimalist approach and passive strategy will impact the film’s overall performance. Drishyam 3 is directed by Jeethu Joseph, who reportedly has ambitious plans to expand the universe even further.