Balayya & Mahesh made the Difference

‘Dookudu’ and ‘Sri Rama Rayam’ stand out for contrasting reasons while dubbing films made a clear dent into the Tollywood market during the year of 2011 which has seen a pack of 100 odd releases. Youngsters however disappointed with ‘Dhada,’ ‘Bezawada’ and ‘Nenu Naa Rakshasi’ passing away without being noticed much while dubbing films like ‘Kanchana,’ ‘Dirty Picture’ and ‘Seventh Sense’ had good response and got rave reviews. Ramgopal Varma contributed to two flops, Jr. NTR had a bad patch along with Pawan Kalyan and Nagarjuna while Naresh tried a couple of tricks to make you laugh and Bunny tried something new to impress his fans. 

The year started on a lovely note and a whiff of fresh air breezed across Tollywood with ‘Ala Modaliandi’ having Nitya Menon and Nani in lead cracking the records while debutant director Nandini Reddy turned overnight celebrity. The year end has seen Bapu-Ramana’s last venture ‘Sri Rama Rajyam’ which received good talk, if not collections and Balakrishna getting into his father’s shoes in the role of Sri Rama.  

January had also seen Balakrishna’s ‘Parama Veera Chakra’ directed by Dasari Naryana Rao besides ‘Golconda High School’ which had some newness in it. Raviteja in his flamboyant style came with ‘Mirpakaya’ for Pongal.

February has seen films with theme and timing and ‘Jai Bolo Telangana’ emerged while Nagarjuna looked at ‘Gaganam’ and Naresh made his usual mischief in ‘Aha Na Pellanta.’

Dubbed films ‘Anthima Teerpu’ and ‘Erra Gulabeelu’ made an entry while Ramgopal Varma provided the biggest disappointment with ‘Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalraju.’ The film however, added one more lead role to Sunil’s career, who is coming out of the comedy grove. Romantic films ‘Kudirithe Cup Coffee’ (Varun Sandesh) and ‘Love Before Wedding’ (LBW) just passed by. 

March had seen another misadventure from RGV stable as the entry and exit of ‘Dongala Muta’ was silent. The film was shot in five days and must have run a day or two more in major theatres. This moth too had seen dubbing films ‘Jackie’ and ‘Puli Veta’ besides a couple of other films which just went through the formality of release.

The summer of 2011 has seen ‘Shakti (Jr NTR), Nenu Naa Rakshasi (Ra.Na), Mr Perfect (Prabhas), Teen Maar (Pavan Kalyan)’ getting lukewarm response. Naga Chaitanya’s ‘100 % Love’ and Allari Naresh starrer ‘Seema Tapakai’ waded through the formalities. ‘Vaikuntapali’ tried to tickle the funny bone to a certain extent.

The two months have seen a slew of dubbing and remake films, ‘Lankeshwari, Lokame Kothaga, Rangam and Vaishali’ while ‘Badrinath’ made some impact as it came like a welcome shower during the drought while dubbing films ‘Vaaadu Veedu’ was released. ‘180’ and ‘Nagaram Nidrapothunna Vela’ had seen the month off.

July and August had a rash of dubbing films dotting the Telugu land which made the industry to sit up and think of a solution. As expected the biggies wanted to discourage dubbed films by asking the government to impose more taxes and restrict the number of screenings but the industry did not find a solution as to what should be done to improve the standards of Telugu films.

July has seen ‘Goa, Nanna, Kanchana, ATM and Sega (all dubbing)’ while ‘Brahmigadi Katha’ was the straight film which could not make much impact.  August began with dubbing films ‘Naa Peru Shiva, Mark and Simha Mukhi.’ Then came is ‘Dhada’ of Naga Chaitanya which had a feeble running. There was also ‘Kandireega’ but the buzz was limited.

Dubbing films ‘Roudram’ and ‘Urumi’ then arrived. JD Chakravarthi’s ‘Money, Money More Money’ somehow missed the alphabet ‘No’ somewhere in the title. Tollywood suddenly came out of the drought as ‘Dookudu’ became a hit, collection wise. With good openings and talk, the attack on dubbing movies was stepped up. The month had also seen Naresh flick ‘Madatha Kaaja’ besides dubbing films Gambler, ‘Ustad, Vachadu Gelichadu and Shishira’ but ‘Dookudu’ went on to create new records and Telugu audience lapped up the straight movie.

Next month, it was Jr. NTR’s ‘Oosaravelli.’ It really did not stand out but ran its minimum guarantee course. ‘Seventh Sense’ (dubbing) made a sensation while real Telugu movie ‘Pilla Zamindar’ made its way silently in B class centers to good running.

‘Sri Rama Rayam’ arrived in November and though it received good talk and the audio was a super hit the collections not very encouraging.  ‘Solo,’ ‘Veedu Theda’ and ‘Its My Love Story’ stood for romance genre but not to any measurable success.

‘Bezawada’ fell on its knees in the year end while ‘Panjaa’ was lapped up by Pawan’s Fans. ‘Dirty Picture’ (dubbed) made a solid impact with Vidya Balan playing the role of Silk Smitha despite the film running into legal hurdles. The third week had seen release of ‘Journey’ and ‘Rathi Nirvedam’ (dubbed) besides ‘Duniya.’ Today, it is the turn of Nag’s ‘Rajanna.’