The coronavirus pandemic spoiled the crucial 2020 in everyone’s life. The film industry is the most impacted and it takes months for normalcy to return back. Though the Centre granted permission to reopen the theatres, there is no clarity about when they would resume the operations. As per the update, the theatres may reopen from December 4th but the Tollywood audience will see some prominent releases from Sankranthi 2021. The season starts with Vakeel Saab on January 14th all over. Ram’s long-delayed film RED will have its release on January 15th.

Ravi Teja’s action entertainer Krack too will have its release for Sankranthi and the release date is yet to be decided. Rana Daggubati’s pan Indian film Aranya too will release for Sankranthi 2020. Akhil’s Most Eligible Bachelor and Vaishnav Tej’s Uppena will release during the Republic Day weekend. Naga Chaitanya’s film Love Story will hit the screens for Valentine’s Day weekend. Several other films will announce the release dates as per the performance of these films at the box-office and depending upon the audience returning back to theatres.

The coronavirus pandemic left a massive impact on Telugu cinema. The shoots of several films came to a halt for over six months and the producers are in huge financial stress. The latest update is that there is not an easy cash flow in the industry currently. Most of the financiers are not ready to take risk and budge for films as they are not aware of the market stability. Some of them already financed for films that are under shoot and they are waiting for the returns. Most of the Tollywood producers depend on finances to produce films.

There is a huge financial crunch currently and the producers who are planning multiple projects will have to shelve some of them to stay away from the stress and last minute tensions. Some of the projects too will change hands because of the current situations in Tollywood. Analysts predict that this crisis would continue till summer next year till the vaccination for coronavirus is out.

The theatres and multiplexes across the country have been shut for six months. The Centre granted permission to reopen the theatres starting from October 15th but with 50% occupancy and following the issued guidelines. The concept of 50% occupancy was never imposed for any other field except movie theatres. This turned out to be a shock for the producers as they have been tasting losses when there was scope for full occupancy expressed Telugu producer C Kalyan. He said that the producers will incur huge losses if the occupancy is 50%.

Tollywood’s top producer Suresh Babu hinted that no big filmmakers would dare to release their films in this situation. “When there are no restrictions on shopping malls and flights, why there are special restrictions for movie theatres? The state governments have to grant permissions for movie theatres though the Centre granted permissions. The coronavirus impact is huge in Telugu states” said Suresh Babu. Tollywood producers are demanding the Centre to withdraw the rule of 50% occupancy if the theatres are reopened.

The coronavirus pandemic left an unforgettable mark on the film industry. Right from the daily wage film workers to the producers, everyone is badly impacted. Most of them predicted that there would be a slash in the remuneration of top actors and directors so that the producers would not incur losses as the impact of coronavirus is here to stay for at least couple of years. Top Tamil actors like Rajinikanth and Vijay stepped out to cut their paycheques and this was followed by several young actors of Tamil cinema.

But there is no such incident that took place in Tollywood. Not a single actor announced that they would have a cut in their pay because of the pandemic. Instead, several desperate filmmakers are ready to pay hefty paycheques for the top actors and directors. This left them not much bothered. The Producers Guild conducted a series of meetings but they could not implement at least a single point that was discussed. The producers of the Guild even could not dare to discuss about the slash in the remuneration with the actors of their active projects.

There are several producers who are not much bothered about how the distribution and exhibition system works post the reopening of theatres. They are just desperate of producing films and are not calculating the risk factors. When the coronavirus left the entire globe scared, Tollywood is not much worried and it is finally the stardom that turned out to be the dominating factor.

Film writers are never in their happy space as they are worried that their scripts will be misused. Most of the writers of Telugu cinema did not get enough respect because of which some of the writers turned directors and ended up successful. A week ago, young director Anil Krishna alleged that Megastar Chiranjeevi’s upcoming movie Acharya is inspired by his script titled ‘Punyabhumi’ which was registered in 2006. Before the Telugu film circles could forget this, an aspiring writer and director Rajesh Manduri who was an associate of B Gopal said that his script was stolen and was made as Acharya.

Rajesh even explained how he met the producers of Mythri Movie Makers and why they wanted the film to be directed by Koratala Siva. With Rajesh refusing to offer the script, he never received a call from the production team. He alleges that it was stolen and was made as Acharya. He said that he approached Telugu Cine Writers Association already but he could not get justice. One more shocking allegation comes for Allu Arjun’s upcoming movie Pushpa. A columnist and writer Vempalli Gangadhar alleges that Pushpa is inspired by his story ‘Tamila Kuli’ which was published in the Sakshi newspaper in 2018. He came with a satirical post and slammed the team of Pushpa.

Directors like Trivikram who are taking crores of remuneration failed to respect the writers who are expecting just peanuts along with credits. Trivikram faced several plagiarism allegations throughout his career. Now the list goes on and it surprisingly has several top directors who proved their mettle as writers. Though it is quite early to come to a conclusion about Acharya and Pushpa, Tollywood filmmakers should come up with a strong platform to prevent such plagiarism issues in the coming future before several young and talented writers would vanish away.

Tollywood lost a crucial year 2020 because of coronavirus pandemic and the actors came to the conclusion that it is impossible to shoot for the films before the vaccination for coronavirus arrives. Most of the Tollywood actors are in plans to line up films after they complete their current projects. Right from the top to the young actors, everyone is lining up 2-3 films. Except for Ram, everyone signed their next projects. Here is the list of the actors and their line up of upcoming projects:

Chiranjeevi: Acharya, Vedhalam Remake, Lucifer Remake and Bobby film.
Balakrishna: Boyapati Sreenu’s film, Aditya 999 (discussions on).
Venkatesh: Naarappa, F3, Sekhar Kammula’s film and Tharun Bhasckar’s movie.
Nagarjuna: Wild Dog, Praveen Sattaru’s film, Raid Remake.
Pawan Kalyan: Vakeel Saab, Krish’s film and Harish Shankar’s film.
Prabhas: Radhe Shyam and Nag Ashwin’s film.
Mahesh Babu: Sarkaru Vaari Paata, SS Rajamouli’s film.
NTR: RRR and Prashanth Neel’s film.
Ram Charan: RRR, Vamshi Paidipally film, Lokesh Kanagaraj movie.
Allu Arjun: Pushpa, Icon and Koratala Siva’s flick.
Nani: V, Tuck Jagadish, Shyam Singha Roy, Vivek Athreya’s film.
Vijay Devarakonda: Fighter, Shiva Nirvana’s film, Mohanakrishna Indraganti’s film.
Varun Tej: Boxing drama and F3.
Naga Chaitanya: Love Story, Vikram Kumar’s film, Nandini Reddy’s flick and Mohanakrishna Indraganti’s film.
Ram: Red.
Rana Daggubati: Aranya, Viraata Parvam, Ayyappanum Koshiyum remake and Hiranyakashyapa.
Ravi Teja: Krack, Ramesh Varma’s film, Ayyappanum Koshiyum remake, Trinadha Rao Nakkina’s film and Vakkantham Vamsi’s film.
Sharwanand: Sreekaram, Tamil-Telugu bilingual, Ajay Bhupathi’s Maha Samudram, Asian Films project.
Sai Dharam Tej: Solo Brathuke So Better, Deva Katta’s film, Dil Raju-BVSN Prasad film.
Nithiin: Rang De, Check, Powerpeta, Andhadhun remake.
Gopichand: Seetimaar, Alivelu Manga Venkataramana.
Akhil: Most Eligible Bachelor, Surendar Reddy’s film.
Nikhil: 18 Pages, Karthikeya 2 and Asian Films project.
Allari Naresh: Bangaru Bullodu and Naandhi.
Sudheer Babu: V and Pullela Gopichand biopic.
Karthikeya: Chavu kaburu Challaga.

Ever since the Tollywood actors came to know that the shoots will not resume soon, most of the actors are away from their daily routine. Skipping their diet habits, some of them got habitual to home food and some of them did not even look towards the gym. After months of relaxation, Tollywood is slowly getting back to work. The actors started hitting the gym and they are back to a strict diet. Actors like Prabhas, Varun Tej, Vijay Devarakonda, Sharwanand, Nani are working out on a regular basis currently.

NTR and Ram Charan have been asked to maintain the physique and the actors never skipped their diet and fitness regime. Chiranjeevi too is working out regularly to return back to work soon. As per the early updates, the shoots of Telugu films may resume from the second half of September or during early October. The makers are eagerly waiting to resume the shoot at the earliest and get back to work.

Bollywood has seen some strange and interesting combinations when it comes to actors and producers too. A bunch of producers along with a corporate giant comes forward to bankroll a big-budget project. This trend is not seen across South Indian circles often. But with the arrival of coronavirus, several Tollywood producers are looking for collaborations. Instead of paying a bomb for the directors, some of the producers are offering a share in the profits so that the financial stress would be reduced.

To keep the risk minimum, several producers are in plans to work together sharing the budgets and the profits. This even brings down the financial pressure. If the project happens at a smooth pace, there would be more collaborations. Suresh Babu already started this trend long ago. Oh Baby is such a project. People Media Factory is working on over a dozen projects and most of them have another producer on board.

Mahesh Babu’s GMB Entertainment is joining hands with Sony Pictures India for Major. Producers like Dil Raju already announced that he is ready to lend financial support if small filmmakers come up with interesting ideas and scripts. Director Krish who also produces films is also in talks for multiple projects in such a manner. Shyam Prasad Reddy, Suresh Babu and Gemini Kiran already formed a team to produce content-driven films. Several corporate giants are in plans to tie up with renowned filmmakers to make their ways into the Telugu market.

Tollywood is finally following Bollywood strategies and some interesting combinations, collaborations are on cards.

With the arrival of digital platforms, exploring the content of neighboring languages and countries turned easy. If the film is a hit in the neighboring language, several filmmakers are competing to acquire the remake rights and remake it in their language. Tollywood filmmakers are quite interested in Malayalam remakes during this season. Though it surprised many, Megastar Chiranjeevi decided to remake Lucifer which was dubbed into Telugu and the film even had a theatrical release.

Sujeeth will direct the remake which will start rolling soon. Sithara Entertainments acquired the remake rights of Ayyappanum Koshiyum sometime ago and they recently bagged the remake rights of Kappela. There is huge competition for one more critically acclaimed movie Driving License. All these projects will roll next year and will release soon. The pre-production work of some of the projects started recently.

With the coronavirus not leaving anyone soon, it is clear that the normalcy won’t return anytime soon. Tollywood predicted that the film shoots will resume from July and theatres would reopen from September or October. But with the rise in the new cases, the actors and directors are scared to resume the shoots. Several producers who waited with patience are in talks with OTT platforms to release their films on digital platforms. Dil Raju is already in talks to release V on Amazon Prime.

Though the talks took place last time, Dil Raju wasn’t happy with the price quoted by Amazon. With Dil Raju in talks with the digital platforms now, the producers of some more films are in plans to release their films soon on OTT platforms. Red, Nishabdham already completed the post-production formalities. Movies like Krack and Solo Brathuke So Better are in the last leg of shoot. Going with the update, Tollywood audience will witness a digital release of several prominent Telugu films very soon.

The impact of coronavirus pandemic will stay for months and it will take years for the film industry to recover. The producers of Telugu cinema are puzzled about the future as they are not aware of the business calculations. A bunch of films like V, Nishabdham, Red and Aranya completed shoots. The non-theatrical rights of these films are sold out and the producers recovered a part of their investments. The theatrical rights of these films would be at risk as the distributors will not shell out huge money for them till things settle down.

Some of the buyers paid advances for their commitments and they are now mounting pressure to cancel their commitments and return their advance amounts. It means that the producers will have to take the risk for some more time. For those projects that are under shoot and those which will start rolling soon, there would be massive changes. For time being, there would be a huge financial pressure on the producers and they will not be able to enjoy table profits for their projects before release.

The budgets will be revised and the remunerations would be slashed. The distribution and exhibition system would witness many changes. This time, irrespective of the casting and the combinations, the producers would be at risk till normalcy returns.

Digital giants Netflix and Amazon managed to get enough number of audience across India. Allu Aravind along with some of the business tycoons floated Aha. They spent Rs 80 crores on the Telugu OTT platform till date but the response has been mixed. As per the latest news, one more OTT platform is getting ready for Telugu audience. Veteran actor Raja Raveendra along with his friends is getting ready to launch a digital platform very soon.

They are focused on films that are struggling for a theatrical release and those which are occupied with financial troubles. Raja Raveendra and his friends are investing in some of the films which are in the final stages of shoot and those which are struggling to complete the post-production formalities.

They are in talks to acquire the digital rights of these films for decent prices and release them on their platform. The OTT platform aims to acquire the rights of 100 films initially. Telugu audience will get one more option among the digital platforms. Aha is struggling to get the right content even after having the backup of an experienced producers like Allu Aravind. We have to wait to see how Raja Raveendra’s OTT platform stands in this tough competition.

Tollywood filmmakers are shattered with neck-deep problems after the coronavirus pandemic. The theatres are shut and the shoots are stalled. The interests are heaping up and several films are waiting to get a theatrical release soon. Several filmmakers and analysts made it clear that it would be impossible for the theatres to screen films this year. Hence several filmmakers are focused on selling off the digital rights and recover some part of their investments.

The satellite rights for Telugu films happened to recover a part of the investments for the makers from the past few years. With most of the filmmakers keen to sell the digital rights, some of the tv channels are not ready to buy the satellite rights. To date, several producers recovered through the digital and satellite rights and managed to enter safe zone even after the film had a poor box-office run.

The tv channels are mounting pressure on the producers who already took advances for the satellite deals. These tv channels are not ready to close the deals if these films will head for a digital release. Some of the tv channels argue to have a simultaneous digital and satellite release for the films which is not a fair idea. In this case, the digital platforms will not shell huge amounts and acquire the digital rights.

Some of the producers are mediating to have a digital and satellite release for a film within a gap of a month which would be profitable for everyone. As of now, the satellite deals turned out to be the new headache for producers after the coronavirus pandemic.