Epic is out, and the internet cannot decide what it thinks.

The film, headlined by Anand Deverakonda and Vaishnavi Chaitanya, has opened to a genuinely split response, according to 123telugu, which tracked audience reaction through the weekend. Some viewers are calling it a brave attempt at something outside the usual template. Others think the film simply doesn't hold together as a piece of storytelling.

That second complaint keeps circling back to one name: Aditya Haasan.

Haasan built real goodwill with his web series #90s, and that goodwill is now doing something unexpected to Epic. Viewers going in with #90s in their heads seem to be measuring the film against it, and by several accounts, Epic isn't clearing that bar. 123telugu's report frames it plainly: the #90s baggage is hurting the film's reception, at least for a section of the audience.

The irony isn't lost on anyone watching this play out online. A director gets flagged for the very thing that made people trust him in the first place. Some commentators feel Epic might have landed better with less noise around it, pitched simply as an adult drama without the shadow of Haasan's earlier hit trailing behind it. Strip away the comparison, the argument goes, and the film gets judged on its own terms instead of against a show it was never trying to be.

What nobody's disputing is the boldness of the attempt itself. Even critics of the narrative structure are giving Epic credit for trying to do something that doesn't play safe. That's not nothing in a release calendar full of films happy to repeat what worked last time. But appreciation for ambition and satisfaction with execution are two different scorecards, and right now Epic seems to be passing one and struggling with the other.

Where this leaves the film commercially is still an open question. 123telugu's own reporting is careful to note that the real test is box office, not Twitter takes, and those numbers over the coming days will settle a lot of arguments that opinion alone can't. Anand Deverakonda has had his share of films that grew on word of mouth after a shaky start, and Vaishnavi Chaitanya's pull with younger audiences is its own variable in the mix.

For Aditya Haasan, the bigger question might outlast Epic's theatrical run entirely. Does a strong debut become a ceiling every project after it has to clear, or does the audience eventually let a filmmaker be judged fresh each time? Epic's next few days at the ticket window will say more about that than any review can.