Amid rumours that Raju Gari Gadhi 2, starring actor Nagarjuna, is a remake of Malayalam film Pretham, the film’s director, Ohmkar has said that only the central theme of the film has been borrowed from the latter. “I have taken the central point of the film and changed the entire script for the Telugu version. If we would have remade it scene to scene, the film might be a flop; so I changed the script entirely for the Telugu version,” says Ohmkar about his third directorial venture.
Adding that he wanted to come up with a family subject, and not a horror one, he reveals, “When I approached producer Niranjan Reddy, I narrated a family story to him. But he advised me to do Raju Gari Gadhi 2. Then I came up with this subject and approached Nagarjuna for the mentalist character.”
Interestingly, the director says that he even narrated the script to Venkatesh, who was busy with Guru and another film at the time. “So we couldn’t do the film and Venky asked me to go ahead with someone else,” reveals Ohmkar.
Notably, Nagarjuna’s now daughter-in-law, Samantha Ruth Prabhu also plays an important role in the film. Stating that the actress wasn’t roped in because of the lead actor, Ohmkar says, “Nagarjuna did not know that we were approaching Samantha for a role. It was the 1producer’s idea and then I narrated the story to her. She immediately said yes.”
The director further revealed that Samantha’s role was not a part of the Malayalam film. “We completely changed the story for the Telugu version so as to include Sam’s role,” said Ohmkar. He added that the film was not delayed in any way and was slated for an October 13 release from the beginning.
