Now in its 10th week, it’s the rare Indian hit to catch on with American viewers outside the Indian diaspora
Telugu-language Indian action film “RRR,” or “Rise, Roar, Revolt,” has become a hit in the US. The film was a worldwide box office hit when it was released in March this year. In fact, it raked in $65 million in its opening weekend. However, in its second release it became a hit across the United States. Now in its 10th week, it’s the rare Indian hit to catch on with American viewers outside the Indian diaspora. The credit for that goes to the unusual decision to relaunch the film weeks after it had already played across the country on 1,200 screens.
Set in Delhi during the early 1920s, “RRR” follows two patriotic but philosophically opposed men (Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) as they first clash with each other, then team up to rescue a kidnapped girl (Twinkle Sharma) from a pair of British colonial officials (Alison Doody and Ray Stevenson).
The Hindi-language version made for the Bollywood market has been available to Netflix subscribers since May and was among the service’s Top 10 most watched titles in America for nine consecutive weeks. But even with simultaneous streaming, the movie has now grossed $14 million at the American box office and played in 175 additional theaters across 34 states.
The president of the distributor Variance Films, Dylan Marchetti, estimated that most of the “RRR” ticket buyers had never before seen a production from Tollywood, the film industry that caters to audiences in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where Telugu is the main language.
The story of how “RRR” broke through in the U.S. involves a rare relaunch – sold to moviegoers as an “encoRRRe” – by Variance in conjunction with an independent consultant, Josh Hurtado, and Sarigama Cinemas, the movie’s original distributor.
The ticket sales for those June 1 screenings were so impressive that Marchetti and Hurtado soon expanded their encoRRRe plans
Marchetti, who had previously booked contemporary Indian movies at the now-closed ImaginAsian theater in Manhattan, saw the film’s potential crossover appeal after repeatedly watching it with enthusiastic audiences in March. Hurtado, the main consultant at the independently run Potentate Films, also felt the movie had universal appeal. He had previously helped international film festivals programme the South Indian hitmaker Rajamouli’s surreal 2012 action fantasy “Eega” (Telugu for “The Fly”). Together, the two contacted Sarigama Cinemas to collaborate on a one-night-only theatrical revival of “RRR.”
They hoped that the event would create what Marchetti called “new evangelists” who could widen the movie’s reach from a few hundred fans to tens of thousands across the country, with some help from social media and the hashtag #encoRRRe. The ticket sales for those June 1 screenings were so impressive that Marchetti and Hurtado soon expanded their encoRRRe plans.
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