మన సినిమా జనాలు తెరవెనుక నిజాలు ఎప్పుడు మాట్లాడుతారో మరి. రెండు వారల క్రితం విడుదల అయిన ఒక చిత్రాన్ని ఆ చిత్రనాయకుడు పారితొషికం బదులుగా విదేశీ ప్రదర్షన హక్కులు తీసుకుని విడుదల చేసాడు. విడుదల సందర్భంగా ఒక దేశాన్ని కూడా సందర్శించాడు. అంతా బాగానే ఉంది , కాని చిత్రం అనుకున్నంత విజయవంతం కాదు. చాలా చొట్ల అద్దె కూడా రాలేదు. కాని మన నాయకుడు మామూలుగానే భాగ్యనగరం లొ దిగాగానే తన చిత్రం రెండు వారాలకే పెట్టిన పెట్టుబడి వచ్చెసింది అని, ఇంక వచ్చేది అంతా లాభమె అని, ఒక్క New Jerseyలొ నే 2500 మంది చూసారు అని సొరకాయాలు కోసాడు పత్రికల వారితో. నిజనికి అక్కడ వారం మొత్తం కలిపితే 500 మించరు మరి ఈయనకి 2500 లెఖ్ఖ ఎలా వచ్చిందొ ఆ ఎసు ప్రభువే చెప్పాలి … అమేన్…
A 40-plus top hero in Tollywood who has been getting massive hits in the last four or five years, has his marital life in crisis. Thanks to his extramarital affairs, his wife has given him ultimatum to a divorce! What’s more… his wife of today is already his second wife whom he married after a divorce, and they have a kid too.
The hero, whose name starts with “R”, has been living with his personal assistant cum costume designer for the last one year, and they have going steady for two years or more apparently. He had even gifted her with a botique! That’s not all… the rumor mill has it that he also bought an apartment in Hyderabad for a heroine whose name starts with “N”, seemingly because he has an affair with her too!
Looks like the impact of Srija episode gave shock not only Mega family, but also to the others. Taking lessons from her another couple in the tinsel world eloped couple of days back. A noted producers daughter ran away with her car driver. The producer who made some films with the super star in the past and presently producing a film with the teenage heart thorb as hero and the highest paid herione in his film is in rude shock now. They finally located the love pair in Bangalore with the help of the sim card. When they tried to threaten the car driver to come back, pat came the answer. Chiranjeevi himself has not done anything about his daughter marriage. you are no biggie then him.
Chiranjeevi’s 150th movie is fast approaching, and it’s heard all over that he’d debut as a director, finally, with that movie! There’s but one hurdle to the 150th film - the 149th movie! Who’ll direct
When a press statement precedes an actual incident, you may think that it’s probably about the movie Anthima Theerpu or something like it. But, no! This is about “Happy Days” movie that was released in the USA today! Strangely enough, a leading Telugu daily newspaper already ran a story on “tremendous response” to the movie, as stated by the producers! Indeed, the producers say that
Chiruta is releasing on the 27th, and fans and everyone else too is waiting for its release - only to see how the new heir of Chiranjeevi will fare in his debut. The stills are promising, the trailers are intriguing, and the people are waiting. The movie releases in the USA too, of course, like all medium and big movies these days! The fans will surely go for it all over the world, but how many other filmgoers would want to watch the movie in the USA? Why do I doubt it?! …It’s because I hear that tickets in the USA will be sold at $16 apiece!
…This had been one of my rants always in fact - moviemakers in India seem to think that all Indians in the USA mint dollars in their backyard! I know people who have to travel two to three hundred miles to watch a Telugu movie, and these people still go all that distance to watch a movie! They thus spend nearly $50 per person, for the fans they are, and what does the movie industry do to acknowledge their love towards Telugu films? Increase the ticket prices just because they’re already spending so much!
An English movie made right here in the USA with a multimillion dollar budget is ticketed at $8 while a ticket for a Telugu movie is generally sold at $10. And now, a movie at $16? Will this really bring money to the producers and distributors? Probably not! People would rather want to wait for a pirated copy to be out! Doesn’t commonsense tell that high ticket prices for a debut hero movie will only make people wait longer to watch a movie? In the USA, a Telugu movie doesn’t stay in theaters in a city for more than one weekend most of the times, and is that why the producers think that people will still go for it? What happened when Chiranjeevi’s movie released with a higher ticket price in the past? Who lost the deal?
So many lives are dependent on each big movie! Please, make the movie interesting and let *that* drive people to theaters for weeks together! Make them such visual treats and musical hits that people would want to go to theaters to watch movies instead of waiting for pirated/legal copies of DVDs/VCDs. Let’s wish the moviemakers all the best and best of luck, and let’s hope they realize that patrons’ money needs to respected too!
DeviSri Prasad entered the filmdom as a young whizard musician, and he continued to be that, in a low profile for a long time, and he stayed in the limelight of late! But what happened to him these days? He first started repeating himself, and I thought his tunes were getting so popular that moviemakers wanted him to repeat the same or similar tunes. But now, it’s like he’s just repeating whatever he can! There were some from Ilayaraja that he rehashed, some from Mani Sarma, and some from Remo Fernandes too, and I cannot count how many times he repeated his own tunes from Arya, Sontham, Bommarillu and other movies! Is it that he lost his talent? Or, is it that he finds this easier to do? Or, is he hard-pressed for time? What is it really? I have always been his fan and thus it pains me more to see Devi getting repetitive. “Tulasi” seems good for a few hearings, but there’s some repetition there too. Please, Devi, do not continue this way!
Well, I am not sure at this time! Last month, when the film was being offered for seven lakhs, the distributor politely declined the offer, feeling it was a heavy price. Another distributor did go ahead and pay a 3-lakh advance in a 5.5-lakh deal that was presumed to include DVD rights! He was however shocked when he knew that the DVD rights were sold to someone else, and he simply backed out in the last minute, asking for a refund of his advance!…Okay, what happens then? The film is releasing in India today, and the prints are not sent to the USA, and the next couple of weeks will witness a battle between Chiruta and Happy Days, leaving not many theaters for Vijayadasami even if the distribution deal is finalized and prints are sent! Thus said, would someone be ready to take it and screen it in the USA after a couple of weeks, and would someone go to the theaters and watch it? Is it the greed of the producer or bad planning of release or just pure bad luck for the team!? Let’s pray that the team is not disappointed and that the distributors are not heavily taxed, but let’s hope the movie will be so good that it can pull crowds to the theaters even after a week or two of its release in India!
Kane and Abel (English) - khudgarz (Hindi) - praaNasnEhitulu (Telugu, Krishnam Raju-Sarath Babu starrer) - Annamalai (Tamil) - Kondapalli Raja (Telugu) - Birla raamuDu (Telugu, dubbed from Tamil)
