When megastar Chiranjeevi was at the peak of his career as a top hero, many other films used to get released along with his films during any big festival days. In fact, there were instances of release of films of other big heroes along with that of Chiranjeevi on the same day.

But never had Chiranjeevi stalled the release of others’ films nor had he forced them to defer their releases.

This healthy trend seems to have changed now. There has been a talk in the Telugu film industry that superstar Mahesh Babu is virtually dictating the distributors not to release the films of other heroes having lesser range in the market around the time when his film is scheduled for release.

It is learnt Mahesh is even threatening the distributors that he would release his film on the same day of the other films’ release so that they would suffer heavy losses.

However large the scope for the release of the films is, Mahesh wants other film distributors to leave the ground for his film freely without any competition at least for the initial three days, even if means the other films would not get the week-end advantage.

Apparently, it was decided long back that Mahesh’s latest film “Sarileru Neekevvaru” was scheduled to be released on January 11.

He directed the producers of Allu Arjun-starrer “Ala Vaikunthapuramulo,” to release it on January 14, so that there would be a gap of three days between the two.

However, the makers of Ala Vaikunthapuramulo did not want to miss Sunday, a holiday before the festival and announced that it would be released on January 12. With this, Mahesh also got his film makers to announce January 12 as the release date of his film.

Some elders in the film industry brought about the compromise between the two and ensured that the two films stick to their dates originally scheduled. But Mahesh is said to have got several theatres blocked even on January 12 to see that “Ala Vaikunthapuram” does not get adequate number of theatres.

When Allu Arjun wanted to advance the release of his film to avoid this confrontation, Mahesh came back to square one and announced that his film, too, would be advanced.

This led to a negative talk against Mahesh in the film industry. The difference in the cost of production between Sarileru Neekevvaru and Ala Vaikunthapuramulo was just Rs 10 crore, and for that, Mahash cannot stall the first day collections for Allu Arjun’s films in terms of collectios.

“One can adjust the dates of release of other films during summer as per the wishes of Mahesh, but he cannot create troubles for other film makers like this,” a film analyst commented.