The Saaho pre-release event held at Ramoji Film City (RFC) in the outskirts of Hyderabad on Sunday evening was a glitzy one, reportedly organised with a budget of over ₹2crore for the lavish stage design and other arrangements.
According to production house UV Creations, the event had a gathering of more than 100,000 fans of Prabhas who travelled all the way to RFC to cheer Prabhas whose film is gearing up for release two years after Baahubali - The Conclusion.
Prabhas and director Sujeeth spoke at length about the work that went into the film, since its inception. Sujeeth, who directed a short film before making his directorial debut with Run Raja Run, recalled the time he was watching one of Prabhas’s hit films, Mirchi (2013), in theatre with his dad. Soon after, he had got a call stating that Prabhas had watched his short film, appreciated his screenplay and wanted to meet him. As an aspiring filmmaker, this was a dream come true for Sujeeth. However, Saaho got rolling much later.
On his part, Prabhas remembered meeting Sujeeth who was in his early 20s and being impressed with the story he narrated. He wondered, though, if the young filmmaker would be able to work with a team that had reputed and established technicians like editor Sreekar Prasad, production designer Sabu Cyril, visual effects supervisor R.C. Kamalakannan, cinematographer Madhie among others. His doubts were soon put to rest, he stated.
The cast and crew of Saaho — Shraddha Kapoor, Arun Vijay, Ravi Varma, Murali Sharma, Chunkey Pandey, Sabu Cyril and several others — attended the event, apart from Telugu cinema bigwigs like director S S Rajamouli and V V Vinayak, producer Dil Raju and others.
Prabhas unveiled a new song from the Saaho album ‘Bad Boy’, which will feature him along with Jacqueline Fernandez in the film. Some of the props used in the film were also on display at RFC.