TFI stars once used to trust big directors like K. Raghavendra Rao and Dasari Narayana Rao, Kodandarami Reddy, Kodi Ramakrishna until their films got challenged by new wave filmmakers like Ram Gopal Verma, Suresh Krissna and few others.

After RGV, stars took the new era of directors into their wings and started nurturing them to make films as they would love to see on-screen. Muthyala Subbaiah even though made big hits, listened to Megastar during Annayya film.

Suresh Krissna gave ample space for Megastar to give his inputs. Nagarjuna gave Krishna Vamsi creative freedom but did put some leash on the kind of story, he wants to deal with.

Venkatesh always had Suresh Babu, his brother to look at the scripts and point out the loopholes. Slowly, when the Industry shifted to another young set of directors, Pawan Kalyan became the prime example of leaving a mark his films no matter who the director was.

Mahesh got the name of being director’s actor and there were mixed signals from stars to directors on how the work process, will be. Puri Jagannath, VV Vinayak, Trivikram Srinivas could enjoy unlimited freedom until recently.

The things have changed completely now. As each hero is looking at 100 crores market potential and not happy with quantity but looking at quality, new directors are having to wait for months to get approval and change the scripts according to wishes of the stars.

Geetha Arts, Annapurna Studios, Suresh Productions started giving young directors time and in some cases, monthly salary for them to come up with the scripts that they can give to the stars of their respective compounds.

Dil Raju started the script scrutiny with a set of creative people that he trusts and we can find young directors in their offices all the time discussing about prospects of a movie.

So, we are seeing “creative differences” creeping up between actors like Mahesh, Allu Arjun with Sukumar, Vikram Kumar. Even Trivikram Srinivas is not an exemption to this new script scrutiny trend.

Only SS Rajamouli can get away from all this, due to his blockbusters and fame. The interesting thing is Sukumar could get immediate approval after differences with Mahesh and Vikram Kumar could get approval of Nani immediately after he left Allu Arjun compound with a script.

Even though the cinema veterans feel the leash on directors shouldn’t be the case, when actors are getting crores and are also investing in films, they will always be more insecure as they have to adhere to fan pressure and get over the peer pressure to keep themselves in competition.

Producers are also encouraging this as it will decrease the loss. Before the film begins they may lose in lacks or one to two crores, but if they end up with a disaster, they will lose tens of crores and reputation as most have to invest in distribution as well in current market situation disasters like NTR Kathanayakudu, Mahanayakudu, Agnyathavasi, Spyder, Brahmostavam, Vinaya Vidheya Rama, Officer and few others.