Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson praise RRR: ‘Loved it’

James Gunn, the director best known for his work in MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, and the DCEU series Peacemaker, has shown some love for SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus RRR. Hours before him, his MCU colleague Scott Derrickson had also said he ‘loved’ the film. This isn’t the first time RRR has received praise from the West, but the two filmmakers are certainly the most high-profile names to shower love upon the Telugu blockbuster. Also read: Doctor Strange, Dune writer bowled over by RRR

RRR, directed by Rajamouli, stars Jr NTR and Ram Charan in lead roles. On Saturday night, Scott, who is known for directing Doctor Strange and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, tweeted, “To celebrate my birthday last night, my wife, kids and I watched @RRRMovie — what an awesomely outrageous roller coaster of a movie. Loved it.” Scott shared a GIF of a sequence where Jr NTR’s character dodges a jumping tiger.

On Sunday, a fan quote tweeted Scott’s tweet and addressed it to James Gunn, writing, “now you gotta watch this movie. RRR on Netflix.” James promptly replied, “I did. Totally dug it.” The appreciation chain did not end here. Replying to the tweet, another fan tagged British filmmaker Edgar Wright, saying it was his turn now. The Shaun of the Dead director responded, “Waiting for a cinema screening. There’s some in London coming up next month.”

Fans have taken this validation from such successful filmmakers as a sign that the film has been India’s most successful import in a long time. Before the trio, RRR has earned praise from several actors and writers from the MCU as well as comic book writers from both Marvel and DC Comics. RRR was a massive box office success, earning over ₹1200 crore globally. It then got a new lease of life as it released on Netflix and Zee5, reaching out to newer audience outside India.

RRR is a fictional story set in the 1920s pre-independent era and is based on the lives of two real heroes and well-known revolutionaries – Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. While Ram Charan played Ram, Tarak was seen as Bheem. The film also featured Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn

The Hindi-dubbed version of RRR is streaming on Netflix while the original Telugu (as well as Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam versions) is streaming on Zee5. Recently, Netflix released figures that showed it was the most-popular non-English film on the platform globally.