More Rajkumar films set for digitisation

His 1977 family drama ‘Bhagyavantharu’ is ready for release, says producer Muniraju, who specialises in restoring old hits

Producer and distributor M Muniraju
was encouraged by the 100-day run in 2013
of the digitised ‘Operation Diamond Racket’.

Producer and distributor M Muniraju has grown up watching Dr Rajkumar’s films. He says he owes his values to the superstar: “I have learnt so much about life from what I saw in his films.”

Muniraju also believes the situations in Rajkumar films must be seen and understood by today’s generation, and that is what inspired him to work on the restoration and digitisation of four films.

He has started work on the fifth, a hit social drama called ‘Bhagyavantharu.’ First released in 1977, ‘Bhagyavantharu’ is directed by H R Bhargava. Besides Rajkumar, it stars B Saroja Devi, Ashok, Balakrishna and Ramakrishna playing pivotal roles.

“It is my dream to restore and digitise all of Dr Rajkumar’s films,” Muniraju tells Metrolife.

“The film was produced by Dwarakish. I bought the rights from Dwarakish before proceeding to restore ‘Bhagyavantharu.’ The negatives were handed over to Prasad Labs in Chennai where most of the restoration was done. It was processed in 20 days. It is my tribute to a great legend,” says Muniraju.

He hopes to release the film on April 24, Rajkumar’s birthday, but not much

The film will be released in 175 theatres across the state, he says. How much did it cost him to restore this film? Muniraju says “I spent Rs 10 lakh to purchase the rights and
Rs 9.5 lakh on the restoration. This expense excludes the cost of distribution and promotion,” says Muniraju.

This producer has a penchant for reviving and restoring old films, especially those films by Dr Rajkumar. In 2013, he had released a restored version of Rajkumar’s spy thriller ‘Operation Diamond Racket.’ It ran for 100 days at Kapali theatre in Bengaluru.

“I had bought the film from distributor S Venkatesh. While the original was screened in 35 mm, the restored version was shown full screen, in Cinemascope. We had released it in 26 theatres across the city then,’ says Muniraju, whose interest in bringing back old blockbusters to life was triggered by what he saw when MGR’s film ‘Adimai Penn’ was re-released in theatres in 2013.

Operation Diamond Racket

“I saw MGR’s fans going berserk. There were huge cut-outs of the actor, erected at theatres where the film released. Fan danced to popular songs. I wanted to see the same frenzy for the re-released version of Dr Rajkumar’s films,” says Muniraju.

He started restoring Dr Rajkumar’s films in 2013 and gained more confidence after the re-released version of ‘Operation Diamond Racket’ did well and ran for more than 100 days.

“I will release at least one restored version of Dr Rajkumar’s films every year for as long as I can,” says Muniraju. He wants Dr Rajkumar’s work to live on through his films.

“People thought I was crazy when I started hunting for the negatives and working on reviving them. They asked me who would watch these films today. I told them that the younger generation would surely come to the theatres. This confidence still keeps me going,” he adds.

Muniraju has so far restored ‘Daari Tappida Maga’, ‘Nanobba Kalla’, ‘Operation Diamond Racket’ and ‘Raja Nanna Raja’.