Directors from other regions enjoying a superb fanbase in Telugu is not a new phenomenon. Starting from Balachander and Mani Ratnam, many directors like KV Anand, AR Murugadoss and others had good craze among the Telugu audience. Their movies have good openings no matter who the hero is. Looking at the pre-release sales of ‘Leo’, people are heaping praises on Lokesh Kanagaraj and claiming that he is the only director after Shankar to gain such a huge craze among the Telugu states.
None of Vijay’s films had houseful boards on the first day in Telugu states. But ‘Leo’ is expected to get tremendous openings and give huge competition to Ravi Teja and Balakrishna’s movies. While all of this is good, some people on the internet who have started watching films post 2010 are making claims that Lokesh is a bigger director than Shankar. They cannot be more wrong as Shankar is a legendary director who created a huge impact on Indian films. Though his movies have high technical standards and grand budgets, he always put substance in the front.
He showcased the corruption in the education system through ‘Gentleman’. He pointed out the ill effects of bribery through ‘Indian’ and presented the pollution in politics through ‘Oke Okkadu’. His movies like ‘Aparichtudu’ and ‘Shivaji’ showed the crookedness in the society. Films like ‘Robo’ and ‘2.0’ showed how humans and nature are getting affected by the excessive use of technology. His messages to society are so strong and he packages them in the perfect way possible.
