The actor said he had gone through both the praise and the trolling around Srikanth Odela's film, even as some viewers questioned why he weighed in so early.
Nani has decided not to wait out the weekend before talking about how The Paradise is landing with audiences. A day after the film opened in theatres, the actor put out a note on X saying he'd been tracking the response closely, and that he found something worth appreciating in both the praise and the trolling.
The Paradise, directed by Srikanth Odela, is their second film together after their first outing put Odela on the map. It had paid premieres on Wednesday ahead of its regular Thursday release, and by most accounts it opened bigger than anything else in Nani's career. That much isn't in dispute.
What's split opinion is the film itself. Reviewers and a chunk of the audience have pushed back hard on aspects of the movie, even as it pulled crowds into theatres. In his note, Nani thanked audiences for showing up and embracing the film, but he also owned the shortcomings that critics flagged, saying the team had put in real effort to build something that felt different and that people were free to either celebrate it or judge it on its own terms.
It's the timing of that admission that's got people talking as much as the film has. A statement like this, less than 24 hours into a theatrical run and before the crucial weekend numbers are even in, isn't the usual playbook. Some social media users felt Nani should have let the film breathe a couple more days before responding to trolls at all. Others went the other way, calling it refreshing that an actor was willing to engage with criticism in real time instead of hiding behind silence or a publicist's statement.
The comparison that kept coming up online was Yash and Toxic. Several users pointed to how Yash never really addressed the mixed reception his film got, and a fair few tagged him directly, suggesting a response along Nani's lines might have helped shape the conversation around that release too. Whether that's a fair comparison or not, it says something about how differently actors are now expected to manage the first 48 hours after a release, when word of mouth is forming in real time on timelines rather than in theatre lobbies.
For now, The Paradise is still very much mid-run. The film has already logged a big opening, but how it holds up through the weekend, and whether Nani's early acknowledgment of the trolling helps or hurts that momentum, is the thing to watch over the next few days. Odela and Nani will find out soon enough whether audiences reward the honesty or simply move on.
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