Old Wine in New Bottle

Everybody wants something new to experience, something that is strikingly new and exorbitant in appearance. Even as directors and male leads are capitalizing on experimenting with genres for a while now, the Telugu film industry is understood to be reviving the times gone by, an era that acquainted the audience with a series of period, socio-fantasy and spiritual scripts. The constellation of new releases queued up in the near future would only exemplify the swing in Tollywood.

Several actors have signed up for completely different projects, although the script remains almost similar in all these films, the presentation seems to be different from one another film. 'King' Nagarjuna is heading the race with four varied projects. Vijayendra Prasad's Rajanna, a period flick, has him stepping into the shoes of freedom fighter Hanumanthu, as part of which the makers are not hesitating to shell out crores of rupees on reconstructing the past. Srinivas Reddy's Damarukam is costing about Rs 40 crore for its producers (RR Movie Makers) on magnificent sets, costumes and visual effects, it being a socio-fantasy. The icing on the cake is his playing God for the first time in K Raghavendra Rao's Shiridi Sai and the devoutness is carried on in JK Bharavi's Adisankara too wherein Nag is to do a key role. Writer and soon-to-be director Gopimohan comments on the change in the mode saying, "Public always welcome creative content has become evident with Kodi Ramakrishna's Arundhati, a visual spectacle. Rajamouli's Magadheera however set the trend for experimentation in genres." Movies like Panchakshari, Mangala, Anaganaga Oka Dheerudu, Robot and Nagavalli substantiated the fact that history repeats. Nevertheless, viewers are not falling for hype and hoopla but embracing only those with substance.

It must be difficult to accept but Tollywood senior heroes are definitely competing hard for their position in the industry. With several new faces debuting in the industry, senior actors have bigger problem to worry about. Today, more and more senior actors are opting for directors who can wrap them in a new package and market out.