Sri: What were the remunerations and budget for Goonda (1984) like?
Midde Ramarao: The film was completed in 20 lakh rupees, and it was sold for 28 lakh rupees for the first run and made 11 lakh rupees of profit in the second run. (Rights are sold to theaters once in five years.) As you can see, I made good profits out of this film too. Chiranjeevi and Radha were paid equally for this film - 2.5 lakh rupees each!
Sri: How come the hero and heroine were paid the same amount?!
Midde Ramarao: Radha was at her peak then, and Chiranjeevi preferred Radha to be his heroine. Thus, we had to pay more than her regular remuneration to get her dates for our film.
Sri: You worked with Chiranjeevi and also with the Sridevi for different films. How come you didn't try to bring them together in one film?
Midde Ramarao: Actually, I tried to make the combination work. Sridevi was not interested in doing a film with Chiranjeevi initially - she always avoided it! She finally agreed to do a film with Chiranjeevi and the shooting was started too. After the first schedule, the film was stalled and no one knows what happened!
Sri: Goonda was a bigger hit than Palletoori Monagaadu, and both these were hits anyway! But, you also never made a film with Chiranjeevi after these two films!
Midde Ramarao: Chiranjeevi became too big for my budget, and his attitude changed too! He was simply not the same person that I worked with for films like Palletoori Monagaadu or Goonda. He became a star and it showed, and I felt it would be safe for me to keep a distance.
Sri: You introduced P.Sarath as a director with the Chaadasthapu Mogudu. Tell us more about it.
Midde Ramarao: Chaadasthapu Mogudu was based on a novel by Suryadevara Rammohan Rao. The film was an average grosser. We made a little profit on the film.
Sri: You seemed to have tasted success with novel-based films such as Ramarajyamlo Bheemaraju and Chaadastapu Mogudu. How come other such films like Sampoorna Premayanam and Jhansi Rani flop, though the original novels behind these films were by popular writers?
Midde Ramarao: It is hard to adopt novels of popular writers like Malladi Venkata Krishnamurthy or Yandamuri Veerendranath. The problem is that people already know the suspense elements of these stories before they even come to the theaters, since the novelists are popular and hence the novels are popular too. Another minus point is that new directors were unable to handle the scripts properly (Sampoorna Premayanam was directed by N.B. Chakravarthy, based on Yandamuri Veerendranath's novel by the same name, while Jhansi Rani was directed by Satyanand, based on Malladi Venkata Krishnamurthy's novel Mister 'V'.)
