Some Interesting Facts About Upendra’s ‘A’ Movie As The Cult Classic Clocks 25
Upendra, it’s just not a name, it’s a brand. Mainstream Indian film directors tend to stick to regular masala tropes and deliver blockbusters, but here is a man, who challenged the audience with his screenplays and ideologies on screen, and delivered kick-ass blockbusters. ‘A’, a one-of-a-kind film recently finished 25 years, this film still looks and feels fresh.
Today, we are going to take a look at some interesting facts about Upendra’s Cult Classic ‘A’ as it finished 25 years
1. ‘A’ is the first of its kind of screenplay on Indian cinema. The film was narrated through multiple flashbacks within a flashback and reverse screenplay.
2. To understand the story, the audience watched ‘A’ multiple times.
3. The opening sequence of ‘A’ where Upendra carrying a revolver walking on the streets was reported to be based on Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story Erostratus found in his 1939 collection of short stories The Wall.
4. ‘A’ was Gurukiran’s first film as a music director.
5. ‘A’ was the first film for Upendra as a hero.
6. ‘A’ broke many box office records upon release and went on to become one of the highest-grossing Kannada films of its time.
7. A was made at ₹1.25 crore and collected more than ₹20 crores at the box office.
8. The film had a 175-day run in Karnataka. The film won accolades from Bollywood personalities like Amitabh Bachchan and Anil Kapoor. He got a chance to make a film with Amitabh because of the success of ‘A’ but the film never materialized.
9. ‘A’ was Upendra’s entry into Tollywood. A ran for more than 100 days in Andhra Pradesh.
10. With ‘A’ Upendra became a big name, a brand in Kannada cinema and in Telugu cinema.
11. ‘A’ is now a cult classic and one of the most successful Kannada films of the last two decades. But on the eve of its release, the producers were not confident about the movie and almost every single distributor had avoided buying ‘A’. A distributor named Yash Raj purchased it outright and went on to make a big profit.
