Sandalwood Actors Struggling to Woo Telugu Viewers

With reigning Kannada star Raskhit Shetty failing to draw huge openings in the Telugu states, it looks Kannada stars are unable to penetrate Telugu market unlike Tamil stars. “Telugu audiences expect something very different from Kannada film industry. Not with usual love stories or comedies since they look similar to Telugu films, hence failing to take off,” says producer Sridhar Lagadapati who has close friends in the Kannada film industry. “I have few friends among Kannada stars and directors like Chandru. I do keep track of Kannada movies,” he adds.

In fact, he brought Kannada director Pawan Wadeyar to remake his hit Kannada film ‘Govindaya Namaha’ in Telugu as ‘Pottugadu’ and it worked at the box office. “It was one of the few films I made some profits,” he informs.

Although, Kannada superstars like Yash(KGF), Kiccha Sudeep(Vikrant Rona) and Rishabh Shetty with ‘Kantara’ minted gold in Telugu box office and set a record in collections in two Telugu states. While other big stars like Shivaraj Kumar, Darshan and others are unable to spin bog office magic in Telugu states. “Surely, Yash and Rishabh have upped the game and wowed the Telugu audience and made huge money, but you can’t expect the same kind of success for other Kannada stars because of varied themes,” he reasons.

He claims that KGF boasted of stylised violence, while Kantara was a story of good vs evil and both paid off. “Despite being local themes, they rocked collections in Telugu because one of them was an action-centric film and other a period saga invoking God and Telugu audiences lapped them up,” he adds.  

He refers to Kannada superstar Upendra’s successful stint in the 1990s in Telugu states with massive hits like ‘Om’ and ‘Nenu’. “Upendra had won following in Telugu for his aggressive performance and also for his unique mannerisms and stuff. His popularity fetched him Telugu films like ‘Kanyadanam’ and S/o Satyarmuthy because he is a versatile actor,” he adds.

He specifically mentions the name of Kannada actor Kasi nath who swayed Telugu audiences with his semi-soft porn movies like ‘Anubhava’ and ‘Shhh’. “Telugu distributors truly made money in those days although there were sex-driven films. Films from other languages work well if they are loaded with violence, sex or if they are devil vs god themes since they have universal appeal ” he concludes.