Naga Chaitanya's Vrushakarma finally has a release date. The mythical thriller opens worldwide on December 4, 2026, the makers confirmed Wednesday with a new poster of the actor gripping what's being described, a little mysteriously, as an ET.

The timing isn't random. December 4 lands right after student exams wind down and well before Christmas, giving the film a clear run at theatres through the holiday window without butting heads with festival releases. Telugu360 called it about as good a slot as this film could hope for, and it's hard to argue.

Director Karthik Varma Dandu, who made Virupaksha, is steering this one, and the pitch is ambitious: a blend of mythology, mystery and suspense that the makers are pitching as a departure from anything Chaitanya has done before. He's finished shooting his portions, and the film is now deep into post-production, with VFX being handled at what the producers are calling an international standard. That's not a small claim for a Telugu film, and it's the kind of thing that will get tested the moment a trailer drops.

A new face, a returning collaborator

Meenakshi Chaudhary plays the female lead. The bigger talking point is Sparsh Shrivastava, who played Chandan Gupta in Laapataa Ladies and is now making his Tollywood debut as the antagonist. Playing the villain in your first Telugu film opposite Naga Chaitanya is a bold entry point, and casting directors clearly think he can hold his own against a star this established.

The production side is backed by BVSN Prasad under Sri Venkateswara Cine Chitra, known simply as SVCC, which is bankrolling this at what's been described as a massive scale. Ajaneesh Loknath, fresh off his Kannada and pan-India work, is composing the music, which alone should get people paying attention once the audio drops.

There's a side effect to this announcement too. 123telugu pointed out that locking December 4 for Vrushakarma effectively rules out Fauzi arriving in 2026, since Chaitanya can't reasonably have two films competing for his own release window. Given how often Fauzi's date has already moved, and how much fans have been joking about it online, that's not exactly a shock. Paradise's date has wobbled too, and audiences have gotten used to treating Telugu release-date posters as opening bids rather than final word.

Still, this one has a specific date, a wrapped shoot and a poster already circulating. That puts it several steps ahead of most projects still floating vague timelines. What's missing so far is a teaser or trailer, and with three months to go before release, that's the next thing the SVCC camp needs to put out to keep the mystery-thriller pitch from going cold.