Recent months have actually been a fairly rich year for Telugu films experimenting with unusual premises.
Champion (merging a footballer's dream with the 1947 Bhairanpally uprising against the Razakars) was released in late 2025. Starring Roshan Meka, Anaswara Rajan and others, the film was backed by Vyjayanthi Movies. Allegedly made on a budget of Rs 50 Cr, it was a box-office cost failure.
Sing Geetham (a musical fantasy where an entire cursed village can only speak by singing, built around an ecological message) starred newcomers. Directed by the legendary Singeetam Srinivasa Rao and backed by Vyjayanthi Movies and Swapna Cinema, the film was a flop.
Rao Bahadur (a surreal satire about a guilt-ridden aristocrat and social conditioning) is another recent failure despite the backing of Mahesh Babu's GMB Entertainment.
This is a setback for experiments (this is not to say that those movies deserved to become hits; Champion and Sing Geetham were definitely boring). Because of the triple whammy, Telugu production houses will now feel discouraged to try psychological storytelling that replaces linear typical hero journey plots, genre hybrids, concept-first films, and concepts with magical realism/surreal elements.
