Raj B Shetty on Toby: I loved the challenge of writing a hero who does not speak

Raj B Shetty referred to the movie Toby as the beast that brought out the best in him and his crew. Toby, which was written by Raj and is based on a short story by author-director Dayanand TK, would have a much larger audience appeal than his previous film, Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana, the former had claimed. This, however, proved to be somewhat of a red herring when the movie was released and viewers realised that Toby, despite the main character’s occasionally violent tendencies, was fundamentally an emotional story of a father and daughter.

Because of this, some audiences found the narrative used to forge this bond to be’slow’ and unappealing. Even though Toby’s Kannada adaptation received positive reviews, some viewers were let down by the film’s slow pace and lack of mass appeal, which negatively impacted its box office performance.

Because of the positive feedback from other markets where Toby was released in its original Kannada version, particularly Kerala, the production team is now prepared to release a Malayalam-dubbed version for those markets’ audiences. The distribution of Toby in Kerala is being handled by Dulquer Salmaan’s Wayfarer Films. Along with the film’s director Basil Alchalakkal and Chaithra J Achar, Raj was in Kochi promoting the picture before its release.