Balakrishna's upcoming film Ruler hasn't lived up to its title in the overseas circuit. The producer expected the film to fetch Rs. 4 crore for its overseas distribution rights, but they didn't even find someone who could invest one-fourth of it.
As the film is approaching the release date the makers have decided to release the film on their own. They are releasing it though some local distributor on commission basis. They are not going to charge the distributor for other expenses.
It is literally free of cost and the producer will get whatever it collects after deducting the exhibition costs, taxes and the distributor's commission.
It's quite a remarkable fall from what they had expected at the beginning. It is getting extremely difficult to find distributors for big ticket films in overseas market.
There's no wonder that a mass masala movie like Ruler has no takers given the disastrous performance of Balakrishna's previous films, the two part biopic of NTR and Jai Simha.