Pawan Kalyan’s ‘They Call Him OG’ faced distribution hurdles in North America due to delayed content delivery from India. The Tamil release was cancelled, and some cinema chains delisted shows. Distributors and fans are now scrambling to deliver hard drives to theaters, with some fans even volunteering to ensure the premiere proceeds as planned, highlighting their dedication to the superstar.
What is a star without his fans and the fans of Telugu superstar Pawan Kalyan are stepping up for their favourite hero. After a disastrous run of Hari Hara Veer Mallu, Kalyan is back on the big screen with Sujeeth’s They Call Him OG, the film also stars Emraan Hashmi making his Telugu debut. The film is all set to have it’s premiere tonight but since yesterday the fans and distributors have been on tenterhooks as the content from the makers of the film in India had not been shared with the distributors in North America. The delay was so much that not only the Tamil release of the film had to be cancelled in the circuit, some cinema chains had delisted the shows from the platforms leading to loss in revenue. The film is now releasing only in Hindi and Telugu. The first half of the film was uploaded for distributors yesterday morning, but without the second half they also couldn’t deliver the hard drives to cinema chains. And with the premiere shows about to start in a few hours,Prathyangira Cinemas, the North America distributors, have undertaken a massive task to get the hard drives delivered across the country. In many cases the hard drives are being sent by couriers and in some cases messages are being put out for fans asking if they can help in getting the footage delivered to a few cinema chains and fans are stepping up to do so for Pawan Kalyan. Sarat Chandra of Atharvana Bhadrakali Pictures took to Twitter to thank some of the fans to deliver the hard drives, he wrote, “ Shout out to our power fan @jamesmouli3000 to delivering the hard drive to Westminster Promenade 24, colorado on such a short notice My college friend @stupidstereotyp who’s married is traveling around with his better half delivering content to remaining theaters in Denver. Talk about commitment.” On Tuesday a lot of distributors from Europe also opened about the last minute delays in the delivery of Telugu films from the it’s makers in India, leading to loss of revenue and respect for them from the cinema chains and fans.The film is expected to take a USD 3 million premiere day opening if all content is delivered on time and it could become the highest grossing Telugu film of the year going past teja Sajja’s Mirai and Venkatesh’s Sankranthiki Vasthunam.
