Last month, as Rasika Dugal and Arjun Mathur-starrer Lord Curzon Ki Haveli released, it marked the beginning of a new chapter for Varun Gupta’s MAX Marketing. After a decade of spearheading marketing on some of the biggest hits, including Kalki 2898 AD (2024), Animal (2023), Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) and RRR (2022), Gupta turned a presenter with the Anshuman Jha-directorial. Now, a month later, he has another offering in his new role— Dashavatar. The superhit Marathi thriller that released in September has arrived in theatres again, but this time in Malayalam. For the first time in India, a Marathi film has released in Malayalam. Gupta, who calls it an “honest experiment”, says that even though in his research he never found that the Malayalam audience particularly consumes Marathi stories, he knew Dashavatar was a film that it would be drawn to. 

Varun on releasing Marathi film for Malayalam audience

“What Malayalam audience consumes is something that’s cerebral, at the same time emotional and deep-rooted in the tradition. All these tick marks were there in Dashavatar. So, it’s not about Marathi to Malayalam, but it’s about the same emotion in different languages. When I saw Dashavatar, I was amazed by the way it's shot, the storytelling, the scale, canvas and most importantly, the emotion. And because I've been fortunate enough to be dealing with all possible industries in India, I realised that the Malayalam audiences are one of those, who are not driven by just star power but great story. Also, the way Dashavatar has been shot on a coastal region in Konkan, same goes for Kerala. So, for me, the similarities between that, between the fact that the stories are absolutely ingrained and emerged in the culture— it talks about play, it talks about an artiste, and things which are global emotions. So, it just came to my mind that while nobody has tried it before, let us be the first one and see where this goes,” he smiles.