Can ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ Keep The Audience Engaged For 3 Hours?

The much-awaited magnum opus ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is going to hit the screens in just a week. The censor certification has been done and the promotions are in full swing. The pre-release press meet has been done in Mumbai recently and the makers are releasing videos where director Nag Ashwin is explaining about the concept, world-building and all other key elements of the film.

The runtime of the movie is three hours which is quite huge. It is quite a challenge to keep the audience seated for 180 minutes but it is not impossible. We have seen many hit films achieve that task before. The runtime of ‘Baahubali 2’ is 197 minutes while ‘Arjun Reddy’ is 3 hours and 6 minutes long. ‘RRR’ has the same runtime while ‘Pushpa’ is one minute less than 3 hours. Prabhas’ flop movie ‘Adipurush’ is 179 minutes long while Nag Ashwin’s previous movie ‘Mahanati’ is 2 hours and 57 minutes long.

Prabhas’ last outing ‘Salaar’ is five minutes short of 3 hours while the same is the case with Anand Deverakonda’s blockbuster flick ‘Baby’. Superstar Mahesh Babu’s ‘Maharshi’ is also 176 minutes long. This proves that you need strong content which will automatically keep the audience glued to their seats.

‘Animal’ was a blockbuster and it is over 200 minutes. Going by the promotional content, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is going to have a lot of stuff and Nag Ashwin can do the world building and establish the character by taking his time. But it will be interesting to see how tightly he manages to narrate the story. Let us wait and see what happens.