"Stars can have one flop or 20 flops": Salaar director Prashanth Neel on Prabhas’ recent box-office debacles

Prabhas is all geared up with his next big project Salaar Part 1 - Ceasefire, which is slated to hit the big screens alongside Shah Rukh Khan's Dunki. The director of Salaar, Prashanth Neel, in a recent interview,  opened up about Prabhas' recent box office debacles. Acknowledging Prabhas' recent releases failing at the box office including Om Raut's Adipurush, he said, ''Prabhas is a big star. After ‘Baahubali’, he became the biggest star. People are not going to forget something like that. Stars have always been stars; they can have one flop or 20 flops, they just need to give one hit. Recently, Shah Rukh Khan showed us that a star is always a star, there’s no denying that.'' According to the director, equal importance should be given to the story and the characters in big-budget films. “We make a movie to tell a story and we want the right characters, right actors to portray every role. There’s a commercial aspect with a star and we get bigger budgets to do what we want. But the criteria is the same that this is the character, it is not the hero who is playing the hero because if we think like that then we have lost the battle,” he added.
 

After the massive success of Baahubali, Prabhas has not managed to give a single hit.  His fans had pinned their hopes on 'Adipurush' (2023), where he played Lord Ram. However, owing to director Om Raut's contemporary vision and poor performances by the cast, the film further dented Prabhas' career. Prior to that,  'Saaho' (2019) and 'Radhe Shyam' (2022) tanked at the ticket counter without any trace. This time around, Prabhas is clashing with Shah Rukh Khan's Dunki.   box office showdown is expected between Salaar and Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki. The latter, starring Shah Rukh Khan, will hit the screens a day before Salaar on Thursday. About the release, Neel said he doesn’t meddle in the business aspect of a movie. “I don’t get involved in the logistics of what happens after the movie is ready. My brief is I’ve to make a movie on a given budget and I’ve to give it to them at a time that they want to release,” he said. The filmmaker said he has utmost respect for Hirani and Shah Rukh. “I loved whatever they put out (referring to assets of ‘Dunki’). People always want to see the most human thing in any trailer or teaser, so we try to do that. Even in the larger-than-life movies we try to do that.”Produced by Hombale Films, Salaar also stars Shruti Haasan, Eshwari Rao, Jagapathi Babu and Sriya Reddy.Salaar will be released worldwide on December 22 in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, and Telugu.