Abhishek Nama's ambitious mythological action drama Nagabandham, starring Virat Karrna and Nabha Natesh, was mounted on a reported budget of over Rs. 100 crore and released with high expectations. However, the film has opened to very poor to largely negative response from audiences and critics across the board, prompting the makers to address the backlash at a recently held gratitude meet.

During the event, director Abhishek Nama alleged that negative reviews about the film started surfacing on July 2, a day before its official release on July 3. Expressing his disappointment, he claimed the film was subjected to "paid negativity" and said that while the team acknowledged certain shortcomings and even trimmed the film after release, the scale of criticism came as a shock.

Lead actor Virat Karrna also reacted emotionally to the response. He appealed to reviewers and social media users not to ask people to skip the film, stating that audiences should be allowed to decide for themselves after watching it in theatres. He thanked those who turned up to support the film despite the criticism.

While the makers have blamed the wave of negative reviews for impacting the film, the reception has been overwhelmingly poor across platforms, making it difficult to attribute the response entirely to reviews alone. At the same time, the team's concern over pre-release opinions and calls urging audiences not to watch the film reflects a larger debate around the growing influence of online discourse on a film's theatrical run.

The makers continue to maintain that the film is finding its audience in theatres and have urged moviegoers to experience Nagabandham on the big screen before forming an opinion.

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