Young director Sandeep Vanga Reddy who is awaiting the release of his much-awaited film 'Animal' had to visit various producers before he made his maiden film "Arjun Reddy" few years ago. "He struggled hard to make his path-breaking film "Arjun Reddy" in Tollywood. In fact, three to four top producers were apprehensive about making a bold film and thumbed down the script," says a source and adds, "Intially, Sharwanand was supposed to play the lead role. Producers felt that he couldn't be accepted by the audience in a "grey role" with aggressive attitude since he is known for soft lover boy roles,' he adds.
Later, Vijay Devarakonda came on board but still producers were not much interested in the project and it was talking lot of time to go on the sets. "Sandeep' talent was identified by his brother and friends and they pooled in money to make this new age love story with Vijay Devarakonda and Shalini Pandey along with a lot of new faces within stipulated budget," he adds.
Sandeep also faced difficulties in releasing the film in good number of theatres in Telugu states. "A top exhibitor and distributor was reluctant to pay decent enough amount to even cover the actual cost of the film. But when Sandeep retuned his 2 crore cheque, the exhibitor was taken aback by the confidence of director and agreed to release the film in mutual agreeable terms, he points out.
However, it was a different story altogether after the film hit theatres and made big money at the box office. 'Sandeep Vanga became a star director overnight and moved to Bollywood. He again tasted massive success with "Kabir Singh" to become a sought after director. He bagged the plum offer of directing Ranbir Kapoor in Animal and rest is history, " he concludes.
He joins the elite list Telugu directors who made it big in Bollywood. Ram Gopal Varma, Puri Jagannath, K Bapaiah, G Ashok and Prabhu Deva to mention a few..
