Produced by Konidela Production Company and Matinee Entertainment, the film stars Chiranjeevi as the titular character alongside Ram Charan, Pooja Hegde, Sonu Sood, and Jisshu Sengupta in supporting roles.
Acharya was released theatrically on 29 April 2022 and opened to highly negative reviews, criticizing the story, outdated screenplay, VFX, weak direction, and editing, but praising the performances of Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan.
The people of Padaghattam, who are known for their expertise in Ayurvedic medicine, start visiting Dharmasthali less frequently due to Basava's cruel regime.
Basava hatches a plan with Vikram and his friend to destroy the village's Gattamma Temple, under the guise of flooding from torrential rain to start mining.
When Siddha goes back to his village to stop the mining, he comes across Rathod's henchmen heading to kill Acharya's squad.
Before dying, Acharya promises to Siddha that he will protect the village and stop the illegal mining planned by Basava and Rathod.
After the reveal of Siddha's past, Acharya is arrested by the local police, while Basava and Rathod hatch a plan to wipe out the entire village during Gattamma's festival.
[12] In January 2022, Asianet News reported that the film's storyline is based on the Naxalite movement in Srikakulam district, led by poet and cultural activist Subbarao Panigrahi.
[13] Trisha was cast as the lead but exited later, citing creative differences, and eventually was replaced by Kajal Aggarwal.
[39][40] However, in April 2022, Koratala stated that Aggarwal's scenes were cut from the final draft of the film as he felt that the role she played could not match her stature.
[50][51] The film premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 20 May 2022 in Telugu along with dubbed versions in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada languages.
[57][58] Neeshita Nyayapati of The Times of India gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 and wrote "Acharya lacks the soul it needed to pull off a tale that banks too much on people connecting to the concept of dharma".
[59] Janani K of India Today gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 and wrote "Acharya is an outdated story that talks about dharma, illegal mining and the importance of our roots.
[60] A reviewer from The Hans India gave the film a rating of 2.25/5 and wrote "‘Acharya’ movie is an outdated story and is further ruined by an unimpressive narration from Koratala Siva".
[61] Medabayani Balakrishna of News 18 gave the film a rating of 1.5/5 and wrote "The sloppy play with the routine scenes, the boring treatment and the weak sequences are the minus points for this movie.
[62] Manoj Kumar R of The Indian Express gave the film a rating of 1/5 and wrote "The writing is so poor that even the two actors' massive stardom feels inadequate to lift this movie.
[63] Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu stated "The playoffs between Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan are endearing, but the film is utterly boring".
[64] Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute gave the film a rating of 1/5 and wrote "It is puzzling how director Koratala Siva managed to achieve this casting coup with such a tedious storyline".