Tamil directors fail to deliver hits in Tollywood

With the much-hyped movie ‘Custody’ also biting the dust, it looks like Tamil directors are unable to deliver hits in Telugu. Apparently, dishing out flops to Telugu stars like Naga Chaitanya (Thank You), Ram Pothineni (Warrior), Viswak Sen (Ori Devuda), Gopichand (Oxygen) and Sharwanand (Jaanu) to name a few and invariably denting their ratings.

“A Tamil director who is making a Telugu film needs to pep up and underplay certain emotions, besides avoiding being too realistic. They should also shun underdog stuff because Telugu audiences love their heroes to be a bit heroic and their body languages and mannerism have to be worked upon,” says producer Lagadapati Sridhar, who also blames it on unnecessary inputs.

“‘Tamil directors who delivered two or three hits arrive in T-town with a lot of hopes. But they are surrounded by Telugu technicians and writers, who offer them unnecessary tips. Resulting in a mishmash of story and the director is unable to deliver a film that he initially had in mind. Of course, there are few Tamil directors who delivered duds because of weak stories,” he adds.

In fact, Tamil directors like P Vasu, K S Ravikumar, Murugadoss, Lingusamy, Vikram Kumar, and Mohan Raj are top-ranking directors in Kollywood with numerous hits under their belt but they put up a dismal show in Tollywood. "Telugu stars like to work with a Tamil director, if he delivers a hit in Tamil Nadu. Take the case of director Venkat Prabhu who delivered a massive hit 'Maanaadu' in Tamil and next, he landed in Hyderabad to do a film with Naga Chaitanya (Custody). Sometimes, Telugu producers have to cough up big sums to Tamil directors to set up a heady combination, resulting in a hike in budget. Some movies work and some don't, so it is just part of business," reasons producer C Kalyan.

Giving a director’s perspective to the trend, director Hemanth Madhukar, says, “Tamil directors have to understand that sensibilities of Telugu and Tamil audiences are tad different. For instance, Telugu audiences love to watch Pawan Kalyan in a certain way, while Tamil directors may overlook it. Tamil directors have strong command over their ‘native themes’ but when they move into an alien territory, they are a bit clueless,” he says and adds, “I hope that leading director Shankar will restore the glory and pride of Tamil directors with ‘Game Changer,” he concludes.