It’s easy to feel nostalgic about the past. We all want to go back to the era of Walkmans, cassette tapes, boy bands and dial-up internet—those days somehow feel more beautiful despite appearing slightly out of focus, captured on Nokia phone cameras that made everyone look good. But hindsight is always 20/20, as is our yearning for films that released years ago but did not perform well due to faulty marketing, clashing titles or simply an audience that wasn’t ready for them back then. Andaz Apna Apna, for instance, flopped when it released in 1994 but its dialogues became so iconic that last year, the Delhi High Court had to issue an injunction protecting the scenes, catchphrases and one-liners from unauthorised use. Laila Majnu, starring Avinash Tiwari and Tripti Dimri, was declared a commercial failure when it released in 2018, but it earned such a loyal fanbase over the years that it earned an additional ₹11 crore when it was rereleased last year, finally emerging as a box office hit.
During her cover story interview with Vogue India, we asked Samantha Ruth Prabhu to name one movie from her 15-year filmography which she believes did not get its due when it released. The actor mulled over her answer for half a minute before breaking into a smile. “Eega (Makkhi),” she said, as though there was never an alternative. “People did appreciate it, but I think it would have done even better in the current environment.”
For the unversed, Eega is a movie that centres on Nani, a fireworks trader who loves his neighbour Bindu (played by Samantha), but is killed by a wealthy industrialist who lusts after her. That is not the end—Nani is then reincarnated as a fly and decides to avenge his death. While Eega became one of the highest-grossing Telugu films of 2012, earning over ₹125 crore on an estimated budget of ₹26-40 crore, it made as little as ₹1 crore in the north circuit. The majority of Indians may not have been ready for a revenge-seeking housefly 14 years ago, but in a post-Munjya, Tumbbad, Jallikattu, Kantara and Everything Everywhere All at Once era, there’s no arguing that they will take an original idea over a hackneyed remake any day.
Samantha is aware of the newfound appetite for such genre-defying films. “If you ask me which is S. S. Rajamouli’s best film, I would say it’s Eega. Especially because when we shot it, he had no idea how to actually create that fly.” In a 2012 interview with Rediff, Rajamouli spoke about how he had to work with animators to make sure the fly behaved the same way as the actor Nani. “The quality in Nani’s personality had to be transferred to the fly. Once we got that in place, we had to work on the physical appearance of the fly,” he said. Samantha recalls watching Rajamouli put in hours of work with engineers and animators, even when she didn’t know what the final outcome was going to look like on screen. “We were just acting in front of a green screen; nothing was happening. It was just blind faith in the man. And Rajamouli pulled off something that hadn’t been done before. It was very difficult, technically, to have a real actor and a fly in the same frame. So it was very disappointing that Makkhi didn’t make the money his other films did. I’m sure it would’ve been a hit today.” Are the studios and the honchos in charge of theatrical rereleases listening or does Samantha need to enlist the services of a housefly with a taste for blood?
