Super Star is a 2002 Kannada-language film written by Upendra and directed by Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar, starring Upendra as Dipendra of Nepal/Rock Star Ricky and Keerthi Reddy as Devyani Rana, in her Kannada debut. Although originally conceived as a remake of the Hindi film Agnisakshi, the story was reworked following the Nepalese royal massacre, allegedly by Crown Prince Dipendra. The film is notable for offering four alternate climaxes, which allowed viewers to choose an ending based on their own interpretation. All four endings were inspired by the character Sigaev from Anton Chekhov's 1887 short story, An Avenger.
It was dubbed into Telugu as Stupid, which was significantly more successful than the Kannada original.
A priest tells Devayani that getting married would be like she is being hanged, leaving her enraged. Later that day, while returning from the library, she collides with a car driven by Ricky. Ricky falls in love and confesses his feelings, but Devayani rejects him.ÃÂ Despite his persistent attempts to win her over, she remains unimpressed. However, her cousin convinces her to apologize to him for her harsh behavior.
Hoping to improve her low mood, Devayani accepts an offer from her cousin to travel to Thailand. After being abandoned by her localÃÂ guide, she is happily surprised to find Ricky there and realizes she has developed feelings for him. However, their peace is interrupted at their hotel when an injured Prince Deependra mistakes Devayani for his lover. He embraces her and expresses his devotion, leaving her terrified. Following Deependra's hospitalization, Devayani and Ricky return to India.
Deependra comes to India in search of Devayani. He tells Ricky that Devayani is indeed his girlfriend and that he had killed his entire family because they had lied to him that if Devayani and Deependra were to marry, his parents would die as per the astrological predictions. Ricky later learns that Deependra's love is unreciprocated and that Devayani was too scared to tell this to Deependra as he was a prince. So Ricky decides to make Deependra understand that Devayani never loved him. Ricky fails in all his attempts.
In his last attempt, Ricky advises Devayani to follow her heart. On a rainy night, Deependra plucks his eyes out and cuts his ears and limbs off, dedicating them to Devayani.ÃÂ In emotional turmoil, Devayani runs to Deependra, but the latter dies.
Next morning, Ricky takes Devayani on a jeep ride, where it is revealed that the Ricky with her now is actually Deependra and the one who died the previous night was Ricky. Deependra reveals that after he confessed to Ricky on the previous day of how he felt like dying so that he could finally get her love, Ricky then asks what if she did not love him even after that, and then made up a plan to exchange their character since they looked alike. Then Ricky, as Deependra, would fake his death so the original Deependra could confirm whether Devayani loved him or not. Devayani is horrified to learn this and says that even if her eyes deceived her, her heart still chose Ricky.ÃÂ She runs away to commit suicide by jumping into a waterfall,ÃÂ but is saved by Deependra. Devayani throws him into the water only for Ricky to arrive. Deependra manages to climb up and confront them.
The climax scene has four different endings. It is the four different endings Deependra tries to give to his and Devayani's story.ÃÂ The first one is where Deependra thinks of shooting Ricky so that Devayani too can experience the sufferings of an unfulfilled love like he has. But he remembers Ricky's kind nature, how he tried to unite him and Devayani, and drops his plan to kill Ricky.
Then he thinks of killing Devayani as she did not understand his love for her. But he realizes that he has killed his entire family for his love and decides not kill her too. He decides to kill himself as he believes he was not worthy enough to be loved. Again, he thinks that he must not commit suicide like a coward. He thinks that he must not give up his life for a girl and being a prince of a nation, he must serve his subjects, give back their love instead.
The film was supposed to be directed by seven to eight different directors who backed out for various reasons before Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar was chosen. Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar mentioned in an interview that, although he was credited as the director, he was not given much freedom on the sets and Upendra was the one who took decisions regarding the shooting of the movie.
The music for the movie was composed and lyrics were penned by Hamsalekha. The track "Thagole Thagole" was a chartbuster.
Upon its release, the film received mostly mixed reviews from critics. While the performances of the lead actors, the film's unique storyline, soundtrack, background music, and other technical aspects were praised, the screenplay was criticised by both critics and the audience. Many audience members felt that the film was more Upendra's genre than Nagathahalli Chandrashekhar's.
Superstar had an extremely strong opening at the box office across Karnataka, similar to the earlier record-breaking openings by Upendra, and set the box office on fire during its opening weekend. The film continued to storm the box office during its initial weeks, but failed to live up to the expectations and most of the fans were disappointed by the movie. Superstar ended up being a below average grosser in Karnataka, running for only 6 weeks in the state's capital, Bengaluru. The film was sold to distributors at a very high distribution price and got an extraordinary opening in its initial weeks, thus returning investment for the producer. Compared to Upendra's earlier blockbuster movies like A, Upendra, Preethse, or H2O, this film was considered as an average hit as it returned investment for the producer.
The Telugu dubbed version of Superstar was released in Andhra Pradesh in 2003, a year after its original Kannada release, and was titled Stupid - O Pichi Vadi Prema Katha. It had a good opening across Andhra Pradesh, owing mainly to Upendra's Telugu fan base, which he had gained due to the large success of the Telugu versions of his earlier blockbuster movies, such as A and Upendra, and a few box office hits directly in Telugu, such as Raa and Kanyadanam. Although Superstar was just an average grosser in Karnataka, Stupid was surprisingly a hit in Andhra Pradesh, running for 100 days, and its distributors in Andhra Pradesh earned fair profits from the movie.