The time had travelled with its long strides through the seasons of spring, summer, rain, winter and autumn, making its own impressions in every stage and transition! The same effect have been seen in Tollywood too!
Another year in the sojourn of Tollywood have been rolled and the year 2013 had witnessed memorable events and happenings in the field of entertainment in general and in Telugu movies in particular! The year gifted a “mixed bag of Super Hits and Super Flops” and made the Telugu Film Industry to get elated in sometimes and to get disappointed on the other. The political turmoil and crises caused due to the decisions of “bifurcation of AP State”, had created uproar in Seemandhra region. It is followed by the strike, which had crippled the Telugu Film Industry from releasing new films for more than 2 months. This unexpected stand-still condition had thrown the Film Industry into financial and other troubles. However, the latter part of the year had given good fruits in terms of box-office collections and success of certain movies, by which the Industry again raised, in full bloom!
The important events and happenings of Tollywood in the year 2013, can be stated here under:
1200 CRORE INVESTMENT
Around 112 straight Telugu movies and a bunch of more than 60 Dubbing films have released in 2013 in Tollywood. Approximately, a business of Rs. 1200 crores have been taken place in Telugu Filmworld!
BIG BUDGETS
A new phenomenon in terms of Budgets of the Telugu movies have been erupted in 2013! The Budgets and the remunerations of the Stars have increased enormously and Rs. 25 crores have become a normal budget for the Big ticket movies (which was once an unbearable budget to the producer, which made Producer Naga Babu to gush-on openly over the director Bhaskar on the movie, ORANGE!)
TARGET 50 CRORE CLUB
The year has found a new indicator for finding the economic criterion of declaring a Super Hit! That indicator is 50 CRORE CLUB (on the lines of Bollywood’s 100 CRORE CLUB). The year 2013, have produced 4 such movies, which entered to that block. The movies which crossed the 50 CRORE milestone are:
1) Atthaarintiki Daaredi
2) Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu
3) Mirchi
4) Nayak
BOON FOR SMALL FILMS
Ironically, the proverbial note of “a curse for one is the boon for the other” has become reality in 2013 in Tollywood in other terms! Many of the big-budget movies have been stopped their releases wilfully, due to the Strike in the Seemandhra region. With this, the producers of the small films have risen to the occasion and come forward to release their films, which were kept in the cans and labs since long. In this period of more than 2 months, 46 movies had saw the light of the day from long hybernation, as they got the theaters without much effort and no-competition from the Big Star films! In addition to it, the small films which have good content have succeeded in getting their moolah too!
EMERGENCE OF 2 FILM INDUSTRIES
The bifurcation of the state had shown its impact on the Tollywood too and it had divided vertically into two as Andhra Pradesh Film Industry and already emerged Telangana Film Industry. All the associations related to the 24 Crafts of film making have also followed the same suit.
BLOW TO PIRACY- THE “AD” EFFECT
The problem of Piracy created a storm in the eye of Tollywood, due to the illegal release and sale of half-pirated movie of Athaarintiki Daaredi! The ‘black sheep’, who caused for the entire episode of piracy is found to be the insider of the Industry, i.e. Assistant Editor of the movie. This episode gave danger signals to the Industry for the protection of its creative property of Films. This issue created controversy in the media at larger extent and made the film in the news. Contrary to the speculations from the inside and outside of the Film Fraternity, the film, Atharintiki Daaredi, run into packed houses and made it as the BIGGEST EVER HIT in the history of Tollywood! Its totally a paradoxical experience in the world of entertainment!
WELCOME TO MULTI-STARRERS
The year opened a healthy way of reopening the doors of MULTI-STARRER FILMS! The much-talked and largely-hyped film, Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, got all the attention right from its announcement, from all sects of audience. Thanks to its unusual and fantastic combination of Super Stars of Tollywood, viz., Venkatesh and Mahesh Babu as brothers for the first time in the film!
This trend has boosted the spirits and confidence of the Directors, Producers and Stars and thus, came another Multi-Starrers in MASALA (Venkatesh & Ram) and THADAKHA (Naga Chaitanya & Sunil).
Of all the Multi-starrers, the year has launched a new film, which is the heights of Multi-starrer! That movie is MANAM, starring the three generations of Akkineni Family, where ANR, Nagarjuna and Nagachaitanya are coming together under single frame!
SMALL FILMS- BIG SUCCESS
Small Films have ruled the roost in the year! These films came out with novel and different story lines, have got appreciation, not only in terms of word, but also in terms of cash too. These films are basically portrayed on the background of urban metro milieu, duly targeting the young audience, hit the ‘bull’s eye’ as expected. PREMA KATHA CHITRAM, VENKATADRI EXPRESS are the classic examples for that.
NOT COPY RIGHT- COPYING IS RIGHT
A shocking event to all the so-called film pundits, have happened in this year, in the form of SWAMI RAA RAA! The film, in its opening credits have straightly declared that, the film is copied from various films! The film had broken all the myths about the inspirations and copy-cat culture prevailed in the Film Industry and made “COPYING AS CREATIVE RIGHT”!
FALLEN ANGEL- 3 D
The 3-D mantra, which aimed to woo the audience and drag them to the cinema Halls, had missed the expectations! Actually, this techno-advancement is intended to provide a new visual experience to the viewers, but bitten the dust, in spite of all the publicity and hullabaloo as the FIRST COMEDY FILM IN 3-D (ACTION film ) and the FIRST ACTION FILM IN 3-D (OM film)!
(This article is first one among the series of articles on the REVIEW OF TOLLYWOOD-2013)
by Mamidi Harikrishna (harikrishnam at ragalahari.in)
