According to multiple reports, the festive Sankranthi release window of January 2026 may witness a major clash as a Prabhas film might battle it out with Chiranjeevi’s release in the two Telugu-speaking states.
Prabhas’ The Raja Saab, has a release date set for January 9, opening across nearly 1,500 theatres in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Meanwhile, Chiranjeevi and Venkatesh Daggubati's comedy Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu (in their first film together), co-starring Nayanthara, is releasing on January 12, and has been described as a wholesome family entertainer. Chiranjeevi and director Anil Ravipudi had earlier posted the video, welcoming Venkatesh to the project.
The Telugu dubbed version of Vijay’s final Tamil film Jana Nayagan will further add competition to the release window.
The Sankranthi four-day holiday weekend is especially popular among the family audiences. This year, the blockbuster success of family comedy Sankranthiki Vasthunam (2025) showed how the family-centric films still made an impact. The other major release in 2025 for Sankranthi was Shankar’s Game Changer, which under-performed.
Helmed by director Maruthi for People Media Factory, The Raja Saab is produced by T. G. Vishwa Prasad, with camerawork by Karthik Palani and music by Thaman S. Its cast also includes Malavika Mohanan, Nidhhi Agerwal, and Ridhi Kumar.
Earlier, producer Vishwa Prasad had blamed the visual effects supervisors behind his film for constant delays in production and the film’s sub-par VFX output. In an explosive interview to NTV, he also went on to add that this supervisor had extorted money from their team and had threatened the film’s director Maruthi. Prasad reportedly alleged that the delays were first caused by the VFX team who had not started work on the CG portions until October 2024. The film was initially expected to release in April of this year, but the constant issues plaguing production have resulted in multiple delays.
