New Delhi: In a recent interview, the son of director SS Rajamouli, SS Karthikeya, spoke candidly regarding the claim that the 'RRR' team spent 80 crore on its Oscar campaign. The team did indeed invest in crores, he said, but it was far less than had been reported in other stories.
Since team RRR's return from the Academy Awards, rumours have been circulating that they lavished an incredible 80 crore on the Oscar campaign. The Oscar Award for Best Original Song went to RRR's song 'Naatu Naatu'. In an interview with Galatta Plus, Karthikeya clarified that they didn’t spend such big bucks. "We wanted to wrap up things in ₹5 crore. That was the plan but we ended up spending ₹8.5 crore 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,” Karthikeya said.
He clarified that substantial amount of money is spent on these screenings, to which voters are typically invited. Addressing the whole theory about buying the Oscar and 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 further added that an 'Oscar can’t be bought, people’s love can’t be bought'. Also, he said that some people spend money on marketing their film. The first Indian film to win an Oscar for Original Song is 'RRR', which made more over $1200 crore worldwide during its theatrical run.
Based on the lives of two heroes and well-known revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, 'RRR' is a fictional story that takes place in the pre-independence era of the 1920s. Jr. NTR was portrayed as Bheem, and Ram Charan played Ram. The film also starred Bollywood actors Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn in key roles.