While the audience decide the fate of a movie, it is undoubtedly the die-hard fans who determine the fate of a movie star. It is hence, the legendary actor late Dr. Rajkumar referred to all his fans as abhimani devarugalu which literally means equating him to the Almighty. In turn, fans have always propelled the career of stars, taking them to greater heights. The unconditional love and support of fans is admired by all actors across the globe. However, with the new age of technology pegged with various social media platforms which allows fans to stay closely connected with their favourite stars has resulted both in pros and cons, sometimes making things complicated for the filmmakers. Bengaluru Chronicle reports on the campaign, displeasure and more expressed by some fans.
While filmmakers respect every such view, they strictly want the entire movie-aking process including casting to be left to the decision of the director. “If the movie is not good, the audience will respond accordingly but as producers one should not poke their pose into the art of filmmaking and neither should fans. The director is the captain as it is his brain child. He knows best on who is perfect to play his characters,” says Naveen, a film producer.
Recently, actress Rachitha Ram was trending on social media for a different reason. A section of the fans claiming themselves to be fans of Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar, had in fact started an online campaign with the hashtag #RachitaBeda. Even as the campaign started making news, none other than Puneeth reportedly stepped in and the issue came to be settled with Rachitha remaining the heroine in Natasarvabhouma directed by Pawan Wadeyar.
Actress Priyanka Jawalkar who was the first choice was soon replaced by Rachitha Ram, and this led to the campaign. It is learnt that a section of the fans were irked by a comment of actress Rachitha in the past. However, the actress has always maintained saying, “ I am a great fan of Appu sir and it is always a great pleasure to with work with such great actor.”
Even Puneeth’s fans feel that it was the work of a few who claimed that his fans had started this campaign. “In fact, most of us are happy that the actress is back with our power star after Chakrayuha. No real fan would indulge in such acts,” says Prashanth, a fan of Power Star.
It may recalled that Nisha Yogeshwar who was to make her debut alongside Challenging Star Darshan in Ambareesha was later replaced by Rachitha Ram. However it is not clear whether this decision had to do with date issues. In many cases it is always unclear why these changes take place. Mostly, filmmakers tend to take the view of fans and other aspects into consideration.
In the past too, similar such incidents have surfaced with fans expressing displeasure with even directors.
“The cold star wars in the industry is one of the reasons why some directors who work with a particular star hero rarely direct another star actor involved in the cold war. Even fans create ruckus and many a times it turn ugly in social media,” wraps up Vishnu, an associate director.
