Onus of pulling a hit depends on how tight and grippingly the director narrates a movie, but not on who is present in the flick. Except the hero, this applies to everyone, even though it happens to be a commercial movie. Because many movie lovers come to theatres either by heroes or by directors, while other artists will only have limited following.
To be frank, this is a Mahesh Babu’s movie and our hero got many hits without Brahmi in his flicks and flops too with Brahmi on board. Dookudu and Khaleja are the best examples, where Brahmi pulled few laughs with his histrionics. Even in Sreenu Vytla’s movies, all his Brahmi characters are not super hits, and one should understand why the director is going without this comedy-giant this time.