100 Crores loss for Anil Sunkara with Agent and Bholaa Shankar

2023 is turning out to be a forgettable year for noted Tollywood producer Anil Sunkara of AK Entertainments banner. He tasted two biggest production failures in his decade-long career with Akkineni Akhil’s Agent and Megastar Chiranjeevi’s Bholaa Shankar. Both these films have left Sunkara with an outright loss of approximately 100 Crores in four months as per industry talk.

Agent was made on a staggering budget of more than 60 Crores. The Surender Reddy directional tanked heavily at the box office and resulted in mammoth losses. The film didn’t even recover a quarter of its investment. Sunkara had to bear the losses alone and even faced the ire of its buyers just before the release of Bholaa Shankar. However, he sorted all issues on his own and ensured that Bholaa Shankar had a smooth release.

After Agent, Sunkara associated with small films like Samajavaragamana and Hidimba. While the success of Samajavaragamana gave a sigh of relief, Hidimba turned out to be a loss venture.

The biggest setback came in the form of Bholaa Shankar. As the film didn’t receive good offers, Sunkara released it on his own in some big territories like Naizam. The openings are dismal and the collections crashed on the second day itself signalling a death knell even before the end of the first weekend.

Trade circles predict that Bholaa Shankar will not even recover thirty percent of its investment and Anil Sunkara will lose more than 60 crores. It remains to be if Chiru comes forward to return a part of his remuneration to recoup the losses incurred by his producer.