No doubt, Tollywood stars are on a new mission these days. Close on the heels of seasoned star Ravi Teja supporting content-driven movies like ‘Changu Re Bangaru Raja’ and ‘Sundaram Master,’ his colleague and hotshot Rana Daggubati is boosting the chances of a thematic film ’35 Chinna Kada Kaadu’ featuring Nivedha Thomas and Priyadarshi set for release next week. “It is good that popular stars are promoting content based movies since it helps the films to garner mileage and more visibility," says producer Lagadapati Sridhar, who believes in ‘content is the king' adage without any doubt. “I also made few story-driven movies and tasted success because only good content will attract viewers and raise the bar on Telugu cinema,” he adds.
The recent success of small but path-breaking movies like ‘Committee Kurrollu’ and ‘Aay’ are good examples of Telugu audiences who are looking for refreshing themes and want to step back into theatres. “Probably they are bored with mindless action films since even a superstar film demands a unique story, rather than cliched themes, ‘adds Sridhar. He claims that Telugu films also had great directors like K Viswananth and Bapu who relied on stories over stars and their charisma. “Films like ‘Sirisirimoova’ and ‘Sankarabaranam’ by K Vishwananth garu, while Bapu tasted success with family dramas like ‘Muthyala Muggu’ and ‘Mister Pellam’ proved that Telugu audience love such movies, if they are served well,” he points out.
He feels that if Telugu cinema has to reach out to world audiences like Malayalam cinema, we need to invest in good stories and back young talent. “Themaetic films will rock digital space worldover since digital audiences are tasteful and intelligent and they grab novelty from any language,” he concludes.
