Ram Charan's Peddi Sets New Visual Standards: 24 Massive Sets Recreate 1970s Vizianagaram

Production designer Avinash Kolla reveals the unprecedented effort behind bringing authenticity to Buchi Babu's sports drama.

Agent AthreyaAgent Athreya··2 min read
Ram Charan's Peddi Sets New Visual Standards: 24 Massive Sets Recreate 1970s Vizianagaram

The sheer scale of Ram Charan's upcoming sports drama Peddi becomes clearer with each revelation from the production team. Production designer Avinash Kolla has opened up about the monumental effort that went into creating the film's authentic 1970s-80s Vizianagaram backdrop: and the numbers are staggering.

Twenty-four major sets, countless smaller setups, and over a year of pre-production work. This isn't just filmmaking; it's architectural recreation on a cinematic scale. The team didn't just research the era: they lived it, building everything from a complete sugarcane factory to an entire hill station town in Jubilee Hills that convincingly sits beneath a hillside.

What strikes me most about Kolla's approach is his commitment to natural authenticity. Using real outdoor locations with natural lighting instead of relying heavily on studio work shows a dedication to craft that's becoming rarer in our VFX-heavy era. The fact that he spent months creating detailed miniatures before building the actual sets speaks to a level of preparation that would make Hollywood production designers take note.

The film's June 4th release date puts it in direct competition with Varun Dhawan's Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai, setting up an interesting pan-India clash. What's particularly intriguing is that both Pooja Hegde and Mrunal Thakur, originally considered for a special song in Peddi, are now part of the competing film. Sometimes the industry's interconnected nature creates these delicious ironies.

Buchi Babu's vision for Peddi, backed by Vriddhi Cinemas and with Jio Studios pushing the Hindi market, represents the new template for Telugu cinema's national ambitions. When a production designer claims the sets will be so natural that audiences won't recognize them as constructed environments, and when AR Rahman composes for a specially-built massive set in Hyderabad, you know the makers aren't playing it safe.

The bigger question now is whether this visual grandeur will translate into box office dominance. With Ram Charan's post-RRR momentum and the promise of performance levels surpassing even Rangasthalam, Peddi appears positioned to be more than just another sports drama: it could be the film that sets new benchmarks for production values in Telugu cinema.

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