August 2023: A Lesson for Tollywood Producers

Tollywood delivered the biggest-ever pan-Indian hits and it was SS Rajamouli who erased the language barrier in Indian cinema. After the pandemic, the non-theatrical rights of Telugu films witnessed a huge rise. With these developments, several over-enthusiastic producers and filmmakers have offered exorbitant remunerations for the actors. The audience are not interested to watch routine and predictable content. As the original films are available on various OTT platforms, the audience are not showing interest in remakes unless they are well made matching the nativity of the respective films.

Bhola Shankar and Gaandeevadhari Arjuna released in August and the films failed to report minimum openings. This is just because of the poor content. The trailers failed to impress the audience and the makers are now staring at huge losses. The distributors are not showing interest in buying such films for huge prices and most of the buyers are ready to release them on a distribution basis thus leaving the risk to the producer.

AK Entertainments and Sree Venkateswara Cine Chitra tasted heavy losses with these films and they are a lesson for Telugu cinema. The producers must be extra cautious on the budgets and the remunerations of the actors. Every film of an actor is different and the non-theatrical, theatrical business entirely depends on the content, genre and the director, technicians involved. Directors like Meher Ramesh and Praveen Sattaru delivered duds in the past. This had a huge impact on the theatrical business of Bhola Shankar and Gaandeevadhari Arjuna.

Chiranjeevi and Varun Tej pocketed huge remunerations for the films. Even their respective remunerations weren’t recovered through the theatrical rights. August 2023 is the best lesson to say how the perspective of the audience has changed. Every producer has to be very cautious before signing a film. The final budgets, remunerations and others should be considered as the entire risk now falls on the producer himself.