Sai Pallavi’s craze among youth needs no introduction. She is one of the fastest rising stars in South Indian film industry. Youngsters are crazy mad over her.

Sai Pallavi has set the box office on fire with films like Fidaa and MCA. No one can deny her role in the success of Middle Class Abbay starring Nani.

However, fans are wishing to see her in cheerful and energetic characters like Bhanumathi and Chinni. They are not interested to see Sai Pallavi as a melodramatic mother, which is quite evident with the reception for her latest film Kanam.

The film is a heavy drama based on mother-daughter sentiment. Sai Pallavi will be seen as a mother of a small kid in Kanam. It looks like dark drama where Sai Pallavi plays an emotional character.

Naga Shourya who has shined in films like Chalo also plays a passive character in it. So youngsters are not keen on watching it, which is why the film couldn’t make a mark with advance bookings.

It may pick up if it generates positive word of mouth from early shows. As of now poor publicity and dark theme of the film is restricting Kanam from getting a good start at ticket windows despite a popular lead pair.

Mahesh Babu and Koratala Siva’s Bharat Ane Nenu has completed its grand first week run in theaters across the Telugu speaking states and overseas. BAN collected Rs 74.7 Cr worldwide share from Rs 120 Cr gross.

Bharat Ane Nenu has turned out to be the fifth biggest week 1 earner of all time, standing next to Baahubali 2 (170 Cr plus), Baahubali (107 Cr), Rangasthalam (80 Crs) and Khaidi No.150 (77 Cr).

In both the Telugu speaking states, Bharat Ane Nenu collected Rs 52.1 Cr share from a gross of Rs 75 Cr. Below is Bharat Ane Nenu’s first week worldwide collections breakdown:

Nizam – 16,20,00,000
Ceded – 7,00,00,000
Nellore – 1,95,00,000
Krishna – 4,61,00,000
Guntur – 6,80,00,000
West – 3,32,00,000
East – 5,52,00,000
Uttharandhra – 6,59,00,000

Total 1st week AP & TS share is Rs 52 Cr

Karnataka – 6,50,00,000
Rest of India – 1,60,00,000
Overseas – 14,50,00,000

Total 1st week worldwide share is Rs 74.70 Cr

After Teja opted out of NTR biopic, none other than Nandamuri Balakrishna is expected to take over the reigns. Balakrishna himself will be wielding the megaphone and the talks are in nascent phase.

Since Balayya is the son of NTR and has seen him very close, none other than Balayya could do justice to the film, say highly-placed sources close to the development. Balayya is also keen to take over the mantle. Since the film is biopic on his legendary father, Balayya doesn’t want to take any chances and wants to direct the film on his own. It is heard that Balayya has a complete clarity on how the film on his father should be and hence he has agreed to direct the film.

Balayya, who is also playing the title role NTR, will be bankrolling the film as well. The film is co-produced by Vishnu Induri and Sai Korrapati as well. The film will have MM Keeravani’s music.

After giving two hits in Pellichoopulu and Arjun Reddy, Vijay Devarakonda is being careful not to fall into the star trap.

While planning his career carefully, Vijay is also playing supporting roles like in upcoming Mahanati. The film will also introduce him to Tamil and Malayalam audiences.

On the other hand, he also has a film titled NOTA in Tamil, which will also release in Telugu. In Telugu, his films make around Rs 20 to Rs 25 crore. There is little possibility for the market to expand any time in near future.

So, he is trying to get a foothold in other languages which will add another Rs 10 to Rs 15 crore to his market.In the past, other actors like Nani, Sharwanand, Sandeep Kishan also tried to make their mark in other markets. But they did not get expected success.

However, Vijay Devarakonda is being careful and making sure that he widens his base with Mahanati and NOTA. If the films work out in his favour, then the chances of he settling down as a south-Indian actor will increase.

Released on April 26, 2001, Pawan Kalyan’s Khushi went on to become a huge blockbuster and recreated several existing records. Pawan, who had already given hits like Tholi Prema and Thammudu before, attained star image with Khushi’s success. Fans still celebrate the movie, the love track between Pawan and Bhumika and the superhit songs.

To celebrate Khushi’s 17th anniversary, the film’s producer AM Ratnam today met Pawan Kalyan at Janasena office. Pawan and Ratnam share a close rapport with each other and they both had a warm interaction for a long time.

Incidentally, AM Ratnam had announced his Tollywood comeback project with Pawan Kalyan a few months ago. The film, which was rumoured to be an official remake of Ajith’s Vedalam, was supposed to be directed by RT Neason. However, the project was later shelved as Pawan decided to quit movies and concentrate on full time politics.

Ever since he revealed that he had a tough time shooting with Sai Pallavi on the sets of Kanam, Naga Shaurya has been totally refusing to promote the movie. Naga Shaurya had alleged that he was hurt by Sai Pallavi’s ego and tantrums. He distanced himself from all the promotional activities of the film’s Telugu and Tamil versions.

Meanwhile, Sai Pallavi had clarified on a few occasions that she had never misbehaved with Naga Shaurya on the film’s sets. She even tendered an apology to Naga Shaurya and tried to patch things up. Even the film’s director AL Vijay had voiced similar opinion as Sai Pallavi. But Shaurya did not budge.

Many felt that Shaurya is wantedly staying away from Kanam as he had signed the movie when he was going through a down period, but didn’t promote it after he scored a blockbuster with Chalo. Kanam’s story majorly revolves around Sai Pallavi’s and her daughter’s characters.

But much to everyone’s surprise, Naga Shaurya has finally opened up about Kanam. This morning, as the film has finally hit the screens, Shaurya took to Twitter and announced that the film is releasing today and asked his fans to watch the movie. Not only that, he even tagged Sai Pallavi and AL Vijay’s Twitter handles in his tweet. Well, it looks like all is well in the end.

Recently it came like a confirmation that Mahesh Babu will work with Sukumar after wrapping his next under Vamsi Paidipally’s direction. So what made Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s project to get delayed?

For starters, Bharat Anu Nenu got a decent talk and the huge promotions are helping the film mint big numbers, but Mahesh is said to be somewhat not-so-confident about the film’s result. He was little puzzled and tensed before the release, as the story and his characterisation in the film are unconventional.

Though BAN worked positively in the end, we hear that Mahesh doesn’t want to take similar risk yet again. For that reason he wants Sandeep to work on the story again. Because “Arjun Reddy” is also little unconventional when it comes to the story and characterisation of the hero.

On that note, Sandeep’s film with Mahesh is getting delayed and Superstar got other projects into the pipeline. We have to see if Arjun Reddy director will wait for a year for Mahesh or will make another film in the meantime after wrapping Arjun Reddy Hindi version.