Its end of the road for Gunasekhar and Samantha

The much ambitious Telugu mythological drama Shaakuntalam, starring Samantha in the titular role, tanked heavily at the box office in the first weekend itself. Made on a whopping budget of over 60 Crores by ace producer Dil Raju, the Gunasekhar directional is most unlikely to recover even 15 Crores through its theatrical release. The film failed in all aspects and received scathing reviews from the premiere shows itself. By the end of the first weekend, it emerged that Shaakuntalam is an epic disaster. The embarrassing result is most likely to put an end to all future ambitions of Gunasekhar and Samantha

Firstly, it is the end of the road for director and producer Gunasekhar, who is no stranger to colossal failures. He delivered numerous box office turkeys throughout his career, but his experience and grand vision helped him find producers for dishing out visual extravaganzas. After eight long years, he returned with a clunky script and failed to convince moviegoers even in a single frame for the entire duration. His incoherent screenplay writing and poor editing are criticised badly. The forgettable box office result of Shakunthalam is likely to put an end to Gunasekhar’s career as no other producer might come forward to invest in his future ambitions given his low success rate. As one of the co-producers, Gunasekhar will lose considerable money on this film.

Secondly, the fate of Shaakunthalam is a death knell for Samantha’s future plans about lady-oriented subjects. She got the worst track record in female-centric films. Her recent outings like Oh Baby, U Turn, Jaanu and Yashoda left no trace at the box office. Now, Shaakunthalam joined the list as the biggest debacle of all. So, Samantha might now backtrack on her idea of doing such ambitious subjects in the future.

Lastly, it is a wake-up call for top Tollywood producer Dil Raju who takes pride in his judgemental skills in selecting scripts. Shaakunthalam will end as one of the biggest flops for his banner. He might need to be more prudent and rethink while associating with big-budget period and mythological films.