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It has been a long time since Tollywood saw any blockbuster hits at the box office and it has become a Herculean task for the directors to deliver content that will surely attract the audience to the theaters. The first five months of 2024 have hardly seen any blockbuster hits at the theaters. The theater Vs OTT clash has been going on for a while now, making the audience watch movies on the OTT platforms rather than going to the theaters.
Starting from the beginning of the year, besides Teja Sajja’s HanuMan, Akkineni Nagarjuna’s Naa Saami Ranga, Mahesh Babu’s Guntur Kaaram, and Siddhu Jonnalagadda’s Tillu Square, there have not been any big films that made any noise at the box office. These films managed to get good word of mouth from the audience and that is what matters the most to garner good collections at the box office to make the film successful.
Ravi Teja’s Eagle, Venkatesh’s Saindhav, Vijay Deverakonda’s Family Star, Vishwak Sen’s Gaami and Gangs of Godavari, Suhaas’ Ambajipeta Marriage Band, Satyadev’s Krishnamma, Sharwanand’s Manamey, Sree Vishnu’s Om Bheem Bush, Karthikeya’s Bhaje Vaayu Vegam are films that received mixed response from the audience. Even after promoting the film through multiple mediums, it is the routine and stale content of these films that failed to attract the audience to the theaters.
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“Content is the king now. No matter how big you are as a star, people will pay to watch the film only if the content is promising. Audiences are clever and you cannot fool them. They are coming to the theaters only if the film is receiving an amazing response on the first day of the release and then with great word of mouth,” says Krishna, the GM of V Celluloids, a distribution and exhibition company of UV Creations.
He further went on to add that theaters, especially the single screens were shut in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for more than 20 days in May as there were hardly any releases that were promising enough.
“Exhibitors have to run the theaters, pay bills and salaries for the staff, digital fee to the Qube and maintain everything possible irrespective of the collections that a film can bring. After Sankranthi, it would have been better even if one film did well in a month. Krishnamma released on OTT within a week since release and Gangs of Godavari in two exact weeks” he added.
Now, all eyes are on Kalki 2898 AD. Distributors and exhibitors are eagerly waiting for the release of this film to see housefull boards at the theaters and to make some money.
In other words, the next six months are going to be nothing less than a feast to the audiences, producers, distributors and the exhibitors. Starting with Kalki, followed by Dulquer Salmaan’s Lucky Bhaskar, Ram Pothineni and Puri Jagannath’s Double iSmart, Nani’s Saripodhaa Sanivaaram, Jr NTR’s Devara, Nagarjuna and Dhanush’s Kubera, Ravi Teja’s Mr Bachchan, Ram Charan’s Game Changer, Pawan Kalyan’s OG, Naga Chaitanya’s Thandel, Rashmika Mandanna’s The Girlfriend, and a few more Telugu releases are giving a lot of hope for some promising content.
At the same time, Tamil films such as Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2, Dhanush’s Raayan, Thalapathy Vijay’s GOAT, and Rajinikanth’s Vettaiyan are what even the Telugu audience are excited about.
“It is mostly the Star actors that can attract the audience to the theaters. So it is important for them to keep in mind to deliver content that their fans would want to watch them do and not the good old stale stories which are nothing but old wine in a new bottle. Of course I agree that it is the responsibility of the producer also to think twice before agreeing to producing such content,” says a producer who wants his identity to be anonymous.
Recently, Suresh Babu Daggubati, father of Rana Daggubati and the one leading Suresh Productions made a statement that is so close to the reality. He said that if this is how the theaters have to be run, it is better to rent them for events and family functions so that the exhibitors make money in some or the other way. It should not be forgotten that Suresh Babu and family own a good number of theaters in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh besides being into distributions for ages now.
Filmmakers and buyers of Kalki 2898 AD have huge expectations pinned to the film. It is expected that this film will bring in the change that most of them are looking for. Also with the bunch of pan Indian films that are coming up, expectations on reviving the box office collections are something every filmmaker is looking at.
Let us hope that Tollywood will soon get its good days back with films like Pushpa 2, Devara and Game Changer.
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