Telugu film industry has been doing great in last couple of years and being discussed among other industries too. It started with Baahubali movie that made entire country look at Tollywood and appreciate the standards and making of Tollywood. But it is common to get such appreciation for a magnum opus like Baahubali. That’s why Telugu audience considered such appreciation as one time event and Telugu film industry is still not on par with other industries like Tamil and Malayalam with respect to many things except Telugu market. However that is also seems to be changing now and people from various industries appreciating Tollywood for many things in recent times.
One such incident is recently seen as Tamil producer Gnanavel Raja appreciated Telugu film industry and Telugu star heroes and at the same time criticized Tamil heroes. He commented that Telugu films are easily collecting 100 crores and still Telugu heroes are demanding remuneration in the range of 15 crores only while their counterparts in Tamil industry demanding 50 crores if they have such market and such track record. This statement from Gnanavel Raja who worked closely with the staff of both the industries really came as a surprise to Telugu people and Telugu industry too. That too, our Telugu audience and Telugu media are so used to criticize Telugu Heroes and appreciate heroes of other languages. It is only in Telugu we see so many news stories and articles appreciating heroes like Rajini, Kamal, Mammootty and Mohanlal while Telugu heroes or Telugu film industry is appreciated outside the state still only for Baahubali. Gnanavel Raja also made some interesting observation that Telugu film industry has acknowledged the importance of writers and stated that a good writer in Telugu film industry gets nearly 1 crore Rupees as remuneration but Tamil film industry has long back stopped appreciating writers and still running behind directors. He concluded saying, currently Telugu film industry is the healthiest industry in India cinema.
It seems Gnanavel Raja’s statements definitely an indicator of changing trend and changing impression on Tollywood by other film industries. Another similar incident happened in recent times when action king Arjun appreciated Telugu films for collecting more than hundred crores easily and some movies like Rangasthalam are even in collecting 200 crores. He appreciated Telugu industry for making such great collections and making good movies in recent times.
Hits and flops are common in any industry and measuring the tallness of the industry based on hits or collections is definitely not right thing but there has been some truth in the statements of the people like Gnanavel Raja and Arjun who worked with multiple industries very closely. The statement that Tollywood has accepted the importance of writers is definitely hundred percent correct and no star hero locking a film without listening to the story nowadays. Tollywood has long back left the trend of accepting films based on combinations alone ( probably Rajamouli could be an exception). Another statement regarding the remuneration is also seemed to be sensible when compared to Tamil industry. Probably Telugu producers are now hoping Telugu star heroes do not hike their remuneration after hearing statement of Gnanavel Raja.
Maybe it is too early to comment that Telugu film industry is all fine and able to dominate other industries but we can say definitely Telugu film industry is on right track.
-ZURAN
