‘RRR’s Oscar expenses: SS Rajamouli’s son SS Karthikeya rubbishes rumours; reveals the publicity budget

SS Rajamouli's 'RRR' emerged as one of the biggest hits of last year. The film won many international accolades including an Academy Award for its song 'Naatu Naatu'. There were many reports that the makers of the film spent Rs. 83 crores for the Oscar campaign of the magnum opus. Now, Rajamouli's son SS Karthikeya has cleared the air regarding the Oscars campaign budget of the film.

In an interview with Galatta Plus, Karthikeya revealed that the film indeed had a publicity budget, which was a much lesser amount. He said, ‘We wanted to wrap up things in ₹5 crore. That was the plan but we ended up spending ₹8.5 crores for the campaign. Special screenings were arranged in a couple of cities in the USA for RRR. We thought we need more shows in New York where we were lagging behind.’

He explained that a big amount of money is spent on screenings in which the voters are usually invited. Addressing rumours of paying $2500 to be part of the ceremony, Karthikeya said, ‘People like Ram Charan, Jr NTR, Prem Rakshit, Kaala Bhairava, Rahul Sipligunj, Keeravani and Chandrabose were officially invited. Each of these nominees have a few seats which they can accommodate for people they’d like to bring. But they have to send out a mail to the Academy and tell them who they’re bringing along. So there are classes of seats and they have to be paid for. We paid around $1500 per seat in the lower level and $750 per seat for the top level. That’s about it.’

He added that an 'Oscar can’t be bought, people’s love can’t be bought'. He also added that people spend on a campaign to get their film noticed.

‘RRR’ was released in theatres on March 25, 2022. It earned over ₹1200 crore globally during its theatrical run. It is the first Indian production to bag an Oscar for Original Song.

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