Why Re-Releasing Prabhas’s ‘Baahubali’ as ‘The Epic’ Was a Terrible Idea of SS Rajamouli

Hyderabad, November 5, 2025 – The idea of SS Rajamouli to celebrate ten years of his grandiose with a re-release of his magnum opus, which now has become one, edited version of the film, named Baahubali: The Epic, has fallen miserably back. What has been publicized as a nostalgic success, releasing to theaters on October 31, 2025, has turned into a box-office failure, particularly in its Hindi adaptation. Those who used to worship the two-part saga are now referring to it as a cash-castration, and bad promotion, narrative disemboweling, and viewer weariness causing what might otherwise have been a victory lap to turn into a face-plant. This is why the move is full of hubris and bad taste on the part of the director who at one point redefined Indian movies.

Box Office Bust: A Flop That Even Prabhas Can’t Save

The figures are not deceptive; it is ugly. In spite of an alright opening weekend due to the die-hard fans and the anniversary buzz, the movie, Baahubali: The Epic, has gone down the drain, especially in Hindi territories where the original movies used to dominate. The below average performance was criticized by trade analyst Taran Adarsh who cited through a paltry percentage of earnings in prime markets of the original.

The worldwide release of the film in more than 1,150 theaters, including the IMAX and 4DX versions, was an offer to fireworks, but it died soon. South Indian versions did a little better due to regional loyalty, but even in that case, word-of-mouth turned sour in a short time.Why the nosedive? Straightforward: everyone has seen it. The originals were bringing in more than 1800 crores all over the globe ten years ago, and home video, streaming, and television repetition guarantees saturation. Bringing back a revamp version to an audience that was already jaded was like offering warmed over biryani at a party, we already have some of that.

The social media is on fire with regrets; one of the viral X posts cries, “Scenario after Baahubali lotteries… Saaho – Flop, Radhe Shyam – Disaster,” releasing the re-release in connection with the decline of Prabhas after Baahubali and labeling it another flop. Cutting the Heart out of an Epic: 3 hours and 44 minutes on Hindi dub makes The Epic sound like an epic, even though it is a Frankenstein mash-up of the originals, chopped by more than 80 minutes of its combined 5+ hour length.

Even Rajamouli himself acknowledged that he cut major scenes: the favorite song of Tamannaah Bhatia: Pacha Bottesina, the entire love story between Tamannaah (Avanthika) and Shivudu (Prabhas), emotional scenes (such as Kanna Nidurinchara), and even the battle scenes of the war. It was, he said in promotions, simply a story-driven film, but critics disagree.Roger Ebert in his review crucially hit the nail on the head: The missing footage only helps to make the folly of the sprawling, episodic narrative of Rajamouli. Even minor plot elements, such as the comic-tragic subplot of Devasena having a brother-in-law, are rushed through and meaningless, making the full-bodied, multi-layered narration seem more like a highlight reel.

The fans echoed the pain on X and Reddit: “Don’t watch this so-called Baahubali re-release. It will ruin all the feelings you had about Part 1 2. They had cut close to an hour of the footage scenes that took you in love with it. Shobu Yarlagadda who was the producer, responded in a rather cheeky manner, saying that he would inform him whether he would feel the same after viewing the film, but the backlash proved him wrong. What used to be a slow-burn betrayal, romance, and revenge saga is now being hastened through its beats and leaving emotional payoffs empty.The philosophy of trusting your gut that Rajamouli was born with, as a response to hearing critics about the originals, appears to have blinded him in this case.

It is not this incomplete compromise that is being scalded by Reddit threads as a missed opportunity to expand the trilogy or even make them feel as if it were a VR world. By focusing on the runtime rather than the soul, the director cut his own wings – a long way off compared to the uncompromising view that made the film ‘Baahubali’ immortal.Promotion Blunders: Selling Nostalgia as NoveltyThe team of the director dropped the ball, even die-hards could not be rallied without a push.

Taran Adarsh tore apart the marketing: The marketing pitch of the film, Baahubali Hindi, was faulty. It could not be simply a re-issue that ought to have been advertised… Many of them believe that it is a repeat run and this is why they are avoiding it. Trailers promised unseen footage (which barely showed up) and anniversary feel, but with no new tricks, such as restored scenes, Prabhas cameos, it felt more like a rerun to random audiences.The timings did not help.

Taking the originals out of Netflix just prior to release, whether rights ran out or plan, caused scramble among fans, but failed them by reminding them that they could wait until the stream was inevitable. In a post-RRR world, where the international presence of Rajamouli might have tempted western viewers once more, the campaign remained India-centric, with no attention to international publicity that could have balancing effect on domestic weariness. It was mocked by X users as the idiotic one, one one of them made a joke about it being a missed opportunity by Baahubali re-release. May have been an ALL-Time Revival!Jensen, The Bigger Picture: Cash-Grab Over Creative Legacy?

It is not just a loss but a symptom of post-Baahubali gluttony. The billion-dollar franchise spawned the pan-India obsession but, as one study observes, killed small movies by inundating the screens and puffing the budgets. It is now like milking a sacred cow, with teases of an animated Baahubali: The Eternal War (₹120 crore budget) and empty threats of Baahubali 3, to release something back into the market. Why water down the magic of the originals in the pursuit of easy money when the fans are in need of new stories about Mahishmati?

Rajamouli, the genius behind the Oscar buzz of RRR gambled on nostalgia and came up empty. The Epic is not a calamity as is the case with Prabhas Adipurush, but it is an unnecessary blemish on a past. One of the Reddit users wrote, As one put it, Life was so good when Baahubali 2 was released, which now has a tincture of this dumb redux. In the case of a director who had previously delayed his release to avoid the attention of Salman Khan in his Bajrangi Bhaijaan, it would have been a prudent move to avoid the pitfall of his own overconfidence. Baahubali did not deserve this half-baked reprise.

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