Popular comedian Brahmanandam has recalled his bonding with veteran director Bapu who just passed away. “Not many know that Bapu garu was a humourist. Although he was a man of few words, his words had humour touch in it. Especially, he shared good bond with comedians. Despite very limited, brief time I had spent with him, I could never forget that in my life,” shared heartbroken Brahmanandam.

He added, “Bapu’s art works, films are masterpieces. Had he born in Hollywood, he would had taken world by storm. I’m very proud to be associated with him. Both Ramana and Bapu shared very good bond as they were just like a word and meaning. They can’t be inseparable. It’s really hard to digest the news of his demise. He deserves a standing ovation from whole nation. I deeply convey my profound grief to his family members.”

It is a common practice that Mahesh Babu is called ‘Superstar’ by his fans some of the media houses. According the cine analysts, ‘Superstar’ title shall be given only number one heroes. In fact, this ‘Superstar’ word in Indian was introduced with bollywood’s then number one star Rajesh Khanna. Later, the title got more familiarity and recognition with Rajinikanth in South India. There is only one title which happens to be bigger than ‘Superstar’ and that is ‘Megastar’ which got familiarity with Chiranjeevi.

Mahesh’s ‘Aagadu’s audio launch was held at Shilpakala Vedika yesterday. During his speech, brahmanandam called Mahesh as ‘Prince Mahesh Babu’ but not ‘Superstar Mahesh Babu’. While some people brahmanandam knows the value of superstar, other people opined brahmanandam should have called Mahesh as ‘Superstar’.

Young Tiger NTR’s ‘rabhasa’ collected a share of Rs.11.88 crores at the end of its two days run in AP and Telangana. Given below is the area wise break up of shares.

AREA TWO DAYS AP N TG SHARES( IN CRORES)

—————- ————————————————-

NIZAM 3.65

CEDED 2.54

NELLORE 0.52

KRISHNA 0.81

GUNTUR 1.43

VIZAG 1.05

EAST GODAVARI 1.13

WEST GODAVARI 0.75

TOTAL 11.88

Clocking nearly 8.55 crores, Jr NTR’s last Friday release ‘Rabhasa’ stunned trade circles by going to become third highest ‘share’ collecting Telugu movie from AP/Nizam in history. This excitement seems to be short lived. Are critics going to have last laugh? Collections are indicating so.

According to early estimates, Rabhasa would be pocketing something between 3-4 crores on its Second Day. There will be slight drop generally for ‘blockbuster’ movies also on 2nd day, but average grosser have to lose around 30% revenues due to the release-day talk. In the case of ‘Rabhasa’ the drop is drastic, as there is a deficit of almost 60% when compared with first day figures.

Fan power took ‘Rabhasa’ to new level on August 29, but poor content hasn’t weaved any magic to hypnotize them to watch film repeatedly. Also the talk is spread wide that Jr NTR has come up with a routine fare, upsetting family audiences who wanted to make Rabhas their pick for the weekend.

Legendary Telugu film director, Bapu (born Sattiraju Lakshmi Narayana) breathed his last today. Since this January, he is not feeling well and admitted to a corporate hospital a day after he was conferred Padma Sri Award. Apart from directing films, he is known for his paintings, illustrations and cartoons. Today, after he is being treated at a hospital in Chennai as he complained severe chest pain, breathed his last.

Born in 1933, Bapu entered into films with his 1967 directorial Sakshi and later made several award winning films like Balaraju Katha, Andala Ramudu, Mutyala Muggu, Pelli Pustakam, Mr Pellam and most recently Sri Rama Rajyam. All these films won Nandi awards, while Mutyala Muggu and Mr Pellam won National Awards too. He is recipient of several honours including a honorary directorate from Andhra University.

Some of the enthusiastic mega fans of late, have done charitable activities on a large scale in connection with the birthday of Megastar Chiranjeevi. They formed the unions with the names such as ‘Exclusive Charan Fans’, ‘Rashtra Ram Charan Yuvatha’ etc. However, as per the directions of Mega Brother Nagababu and a fans association president, all the mega fans, here after, will be working under one roof and that is ‘Rashtra Chiranjeevi Yuvatha’. This is said to be a right step to avoid unwanted split among mega fans. Power Star Pawan Kalyan’s birthday is expected to be celebrated well by ‘Rashtra Chiranjeevi Yuvatha’.

Meanwhile, Chiranjeevi is busy hearing the scripts for his 150th movie while Pawan Kalyan is doing ‘Gopala Gopala’. Ram Charan’s ‘Govindhudu Andarivadele’ is progressing in London.Allu Arjun and Trivikram’s combo movie will go on sets soon. Varun Tej is now in Amalapuram to shoot some important scenes of ‘Mukunda’. Sai Dharam Tej’s ‘Pilla Nuvvu Leni Jeevitham’s trailer is expected to be released on the eve of Pawan Kalyan’s birthday. Allu Sirish’s next project is yet to be announced officially.

If at all ‘power’ has to release on 5th of September, by now definitely producer Rockline Venkatesh should have kick-started the promotions. As this producer is known for exhibiting lots of guts, publicity should be on high scale. Raviteja is the most reliable hero in Tollywood and opening collections can be expected to be of mind blowing magnitude. Despite all these, Mass Maharaja’s last movie ‘Balupu’ being a stunning hit, expectations are set so high on ‘power’ directed by debutant bobby.

Amidst all these publicity confusions, film circles are speculating a postponement in release date of ‘power.’ Currently, there is only one big film in market and that ‘Rabhasa’ of Junior NTR which has got mixed reviews. What is that factor pulling ‘power’ into release troubles isn’t revealed so far! Let us wait and see for a new update on ‘power.’

Nandamuri Balakrishna is successfully taking forward the legacy of his legendary father NTR by acting in movies of different genre. There is only one actor in contemporary Tollywood who can best suit for any characters either in mythology or socio fantasy or you pick any genre. Who is going to shoulder this burden after Balakrishna’s exit from films, may be after achieving the 100 movie milestone.

‘I have lots of hopes on my son mokshagnya. There is nearly two years of time to make him enter into films. He is pursuing a business course in USA. Luckily, Moksha is interested a lot in movies and he is destined to enter into this field,’ Balakrishna expressed his valuable opinion on debut of his son.

In the wake of Rabhasa’s average performance at box office, NTR fans are quite miffed with Telugu directors. They feel that these directors are churning out routine stories for Young Tiger promising that screenplay will be novel, but both are failing big time. Fans have now kept their demands before director of Tarak’s next flick, Puri Jagan.

Cases of Ramayya Vastavayya and Rabhasa are two good examples as to how hit-directors have tricked NTR into believing routine stories, thereby delivering below average grosser. Colossal failures of these flicks moved fans as they now demand Puri Jagan to focus on content a lot rather relying solely on NTR’s stardom and image. Puri is famous for his racy screenplay but often cooks simple content without big logics, vast backdrop and engaging confrontations.

‘Stardom fetches opening day collections, but second day figures will depend on content’s appeal only. Heavy plot, bewildering screenplay and mass dialogues doesn’t save a Jr NTR flick. Novel story, well crafted scenes, few logics and innovating dances are key essentials’, say some fans. Hope Puri Jagan is getting gist of fans’ demands.

Two top leading Kollywood directors Manirathnam and Shankar have showed interest to work with T-town superstar Mahesh Babu, because they like his screen presence and his measured performance which Shankar openly admitted at the audio function. These two directors have worked with best of Tamil actors like Kamal, Rajni, Vikram but have soft corner for Dhookudu star and that quite interesting to discuss.

Going by the praises heaped by Shankar on Mahesh for his realistic performance in Dhookudu, which is otherwise a commercial entertainer, shows their love for his larger-than-life persona and body language. Inadvertently, both these top filmmakers have also approached Mahesh for their big ticket films (Mani’s offer Guru and an historical), while Shankar wanted him for south remake of 3 Idiots, but Mahesh couldn’t accommodate dates for these highly-talented directors. May be, they could some time in future, but their admiration for Mahesh is quite evident and even Mahesh shares mutual respect for them. A film with Mahesh-Shankar would be mind blowing?

The fiasco with superstar NTR, would surely affect the prospects of producer Bellamkonda Suresh since big stars will stop doing films with him. Sources claims that “Bodyguard” producer promises huge remunerations while signing a star and also doles out huge advance amounts but towards the release of the film, he reportedly shows up his true colours and begins to crib about the film not doing good business and would not be able to pay full sum.

Even though, Venkatesh suffered with him but he didn’t take is seriously, whereas actor Ram complained against Suresh to get his pay cheque for “Kandireega” and even few top technicians had suffered in his hands because he rides on false promises, adds the source. Superstars are particular about money because they just do 1 or max 2 films in a year and hordes of producers are queue for their dates, so Suresh may not feature in their schemes of things, if he doesn’t change his attitude or would be soon branded a ‘bad pay master’?

Director Ram Gopal Varma has achieved this rare and unique feat in Indian Film Industry. Probably for the first of its kind, an effigy of a Film director has been burnt. Expressing their outburst over RGV’s offensive tweets against Lord Ganesha, the members of Hyderabad Ganesh Utsav Committee burnt Varma’s effigy.

Usually, effigies of politicians, leaders will be burnt. But Varma from filmdom is an exception. Meanwhile, we hear that a FIR was also filed against Varma on this issue. Already, a complaint was lodged against RGV in New Delhi. Looks like, more legal trouble for RGV as scores of Ganesh devotees are going to take on Varma across the nation. Although Varma deleted the offensive tweet and apologised on the record, aficionados of Ganesh are not in a mood to forgive Varma. Seems, the publicity stunt has horribly gone wrong for the director.

Every hero dreams of doing particular role in their life, while only few could really realize them on silver screen. Surprisingly, our Nandamuri hero’s dream role is something that would have been possible if he revealed that a couple of months back. With Bunny grabbing that role, our senior hero has to wait.

Historical characters like Gona Ganna Reddy and Chengiz Khan are the two favorite roles Balayya would love to sport on silver screen. He revealed that he is waiting from years to get into shoes of those personalities. Most recently, director Gunasekhar was running from post to pillar to zero on a star hero for the very same Gona Ganna Reddy role. In the upcoming historical flick ‘Rudramadevi’, this particular role is crucial, though it lasts for only few minutes.

After failing to get dates of Mahesh, Raviteja and Jr NTR, director has settled for Allu Arjun finally. Probably, Gunasekhar has no idea that Balakrishna’s dream role is Gona Ganna Reddy, otherwise definitely Nandamuri star’s desire would have come true.

It could go down as the one of the worst Hindi remakes in Telugu, since original Ashique 2 garnered more than 100 crores, while its Telugu remake “Nee Jathaga..” couldn’t manage more than 20 laksh, despite Telugu audio being a hit and this disastrous mismatch in box office figures is disappointing.

“If not Sachin, it would have fared better with any other young romantic Telugu hero because it had strong love story” says a director. May be, he is true to some extent, because the original did really well even Andhra Pradesh, so may be it shouldn’t have been remade at all. Its better not touch highly successful films, hope Sachin and others would have realised it by now, but its too tale for Mr. Mony Bags(sorry we meant Sachin).

Not many heroines fit well for a horrifying role in a thriller film. Here is cute actress Hansika tried it for first time and got scared to core after seeing her own poster. In a Tami l film Aaranmayi, directed by Sundar, Hansika is playing the lead role along with Lakshmi Rai and Andrea Jeremiah.

Aaranmayi is said to be a horror film and take a glance at the latest poster featuring Hansika in it. No doubt, its a spine chilling experience for Hansika, who has enjoyed all the glamour roles till now. That’s horrifying Hansika!

Nandamuri Balakrishna turned 40 in Telugu Film Industry. The 54-year-old actor made his debut with Tatamma Kala at the age of 14 and the film was released on Aug 30, 1974. In a career spanning 4 decades, Balakrishna is close to century and recently forayed into “active” politics and reprsenting Legislative Assembly from Hindupur constituency. In a long interview to a vernacular daily, Balayya shared his insights. Excerpts:

100th Film

Q. There are several rumours floating about your 100th flick that you’ve approached director Rajamouli, director Shankar for the landmark film. Rumours were also rife that you yourself planning to direct the film. True?

A. Not at all true. I don’t have a habit of asking someone about something. I don’t ask anyone anything in my life. My films happen only when directors, producers approach me and if I’m impressed with their work. Coming to 100th film, there are several proposals around me like to do a mythological film or to do sequel for Aditya 369 (Singeetham Srinivas’ directorial). I haven’t decided anything yet. Actually, I’m not a person who plan things in much advance.

Q. Are there any roles that you wanted to play?

A. Yes. I’d love to see myself in the roles of Gona Ganna Reddy and Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan. The desire hasn’t fulfilled yet. In my filmography, I like Mangamma Gari Manavadu, Aditya 369, Bhairava Dwepam, Bobbili Simham, Pedda Annayya, Samara Simha Reddy, Narasimha Naidu, Sri Rama Rajyam and recently Legend.

Direction plans

Q. You’ve been wanting to direct a film for a while. You even directed few shots in your own films. Earlier, your directorial Narthanasala was started and later put on hold. Could we expect a film directed by you sooner or later?

A. If I get a right producer and right actress for Droupadi role and other good artistes, I’d like to start Narthanasala itself. We have done great research on Narthanasala and find out many interesting, unknown facts. I was supposed to direct the film and play four vital roles – Arjuna, Bruhannala, Krishna and Keechaka in the film. Everything- Script, dialogues and modulation – is in place. There lies a great creativity in shaping up a mythological films. And biggest challenge is to tell it convincingly to the present generation. If all goes well, I’ll direct Narthanasala.

Mokshagna’s Debut

Q. All eyes are on Nandamuri Mokshagna’s debut. When is he coming

A. He will definitely come. He is a great lover of movies. He is presently pursuing his BBM in United States of America. It will take another two or two-and-a-half years for him to make his debut. I’m pinning high hopes on him.

Angry Man

Q. Many people are afraid of you. Few call you as ‘Angry Man’. True?

A. Perhaps, it was just perception due to my on-screen persona. I’m very friendly person. But if anyone crosses the limits and wants to take advantage out of my friendly nature, I won’t spare. Then they will see the second facet of mine. I’ll chop their tail. In recent times, I’m the only star who shoots publicly. My films have been shot among public in Simhachalam, Visakhapatnam.

Off-beat films

Q. In your 40-yr-long career as an actor, you hardly acted in any off-beat films. Why did you stick to commercial films alone?

A. As an artiste, I’d love to do off-beat films. But where are the directors and producers to make such films? Also audience love to see me in commercial films. I can’t put producer’s money at risk for my own interests. At the end of the day, producers have to make money out of my films and want them to make more films. That’s the reason why I’m not particular about my remuneration.

Politics

Q. You have been campaigning for TDP for the past 30 years (since 1983) and you never asked for any position. You recently turned into MLA from Hindupur.

A. Apart from films, I always want to serve people and do something to my people, country. And Dad (NTR) is my inspiration. One can’t see him like an ordinary politician. I feel it’s my responsibility to vouch for his ideals, his party. In that front, I was offered a ticket from Hindupur. I’ve contested only on party’s appeal.

On Nara Lokesh

Q. Tell about Nara Lokesh

A. I knew Lokesh from his childhood. He is my own nephew and now he become my son-in-law. He is my family member right from his childhood. We’re like friends.

Grandfather in real life

Q. When are you going to be grandfather in real life?

A. (Laughs) It’s in the hands of children. Depends on their planning. Who don’t want to play with grandchildren? I’m no exception. I’m looking forward to become a grandfather. It’s like a promotion to me.

The latest rumour to hit the tinsel ville is that Pawan Kalyan has underwent a surgery for his backache. Pawan had reportedly visited Bangalore and stayed for over 3 weeks where he got the surgical operation. Though he is back to shoot, it is learnt that Pawan is not fully recovered and he is avoiding action scenes in the film and doing scenes with ease.

The whole incident came into light when BJP candidate for Medak bypoll Jagga Reddy checked about Pawan’s availability for the election campaign. So, Pawan Kalyan may not be present for the public campaigning following his surgery. It’s indeed a tough moment for both TDP, BJP and Pawan’s fans.

Usually, heroines rev up the glam quotient in a film and makes the film attractive. But this is otherwise when it comes to Mahesh Babu’s film as Mahesh himself adds glamour to the film. Ace director Shankar too admits the same thing.

Shankar, who was the chief guest for Aagadu audio launch, said, “At first, I didn’t watch Mahesh’s films. After Okkadu, I’ve been a regular viewer for his films. In his movies, Dookudu is my favourite. He brings glamour to his films. Emotion, romance, comedy, or action, Mahesh does it well.”

Shankar too heaps praise on music director SS Thaman who made his debut with Shankar’s Boys. Incidentally, Aagadu is Thaman’s 50th film as a composer.

Mega hero and son of Naga Babu, Varun Tej, is busy participating in the election campaigning in Amalapuram. The young hero has done door-to-door campaign on Saturday in the locales of Amalapuram. Confused? Well, this is part of the shooting of his maiden film Mukunda.

Presently, shooting in Amalapuram, the makers have shot scenes where Varun knocks every door in Garapati Street for votes. As per the story, Municipal Chairman elections are being held. Directed by Srikanth Addala, Rao Ramesh plays the antagonist and Pooja Hegde will be seen as Rao Ramesh’s daughter and love-interest of Varun Tej and she rallies for her father in the election. Prakash Raj too plays the significant role and Srikanth has also shot scenes involving Varun and Prakash Raj. The shoot is going on in brisk pace.

Pop diva Shakira has become pregnant again and is expecting her second child with football superstar Gerard Pique. Shakira and Pique already have a 19-months-old son Milan. And with the news spreading like wildfire, best wishes are pouring from all across the world wishing the couple. The ‘Waka Waka’ star has thanked all her fans from across the world for sending their best wishes.

The 37-year-old Shakira earlier stated that she wishes to have eight or nine kids with Gerard Pique. Shakira also stated that if not for her singing career, she wished to become pregnant again and again! There are mixed reactions from the fans, who are also upset that they would not be able to see Shakira in action. In any case we wish the couple the best.

Shakira, who is the most popular celebrity on the social media has broke many a hearts by declaring that she is pregnant now. Lets wish the couple all the happiness and also hope the singer will be back on the stage to perform more numbers soon.