Salaar director Prashanth Neel breaks silence on comparisons of Prabhas starrer with Ugramm

Salaar hit the big screens on December 22 and has attained massive success at the box office. The film is directed by Prashanth Neel and is headlined by Prabhas. While the movie is close to amassing a total of ₹600 crores at the worldwide box office, a section of cinephiles have drawn comparisons of the Prabhas starrer with Prashanth’s directorial debut movie Ugramm. In an interview with Pinkvilla, the director has opened up about the comparisons between the two films.  

Prashanth Neel says he is unbothered about the comparisons between Ugramm and Salaar 

In a conversation with Pinkvilla, Prashanth Neel rubbished all comparisons between Ugramm and Salaar. The director reasoned, “I told the whole story of Ugramm in 2 hours and 14 minutes. I am making a 6-hour movie (Salaar Part 1 plus Salaar Part 2). I am not going to take Ugramm and put it here. The basic idea; I wanted that emotion for the people to see it on the big screen. That's the only reason I had to do Ugramm. I have many other subjects that I have already narrated and people have liked, but I always wanted to stay with something like this. If that is a negative, that will be a very small section.” 

The filmmaker further insisted that two films can have the same story or the same plot point, but need to be presented differently. In the same conversation, he argued, “People are just going in to watch stories. Eventually, cinema is not about what the story is but how you tell a story and that's how I look at it.”

Prashanth Neel addresses criticism of Salaar: Part 1: Ceasefire

In the same conversation, Prashanth Neel reacted to a section of the audience claiming they had to watch the film twice over to truly be able to grasp it. He said, "This is just the first three hours of a six-hour movie. I wouldn’t put one single character there which wouldn’t make sense to the entire story. When Salaar 2 comes out, that will make a lot of sense to you. I did what I did for the sake of the entire story." Neel also took the criticism on his chin, further affirming, "Probably, I will learn from this experience and do a better job of it the next time."