First it was the turn of Megastar Chiranjeevi who graced for the audio launch of Sai Dharam Tej’s ‘Tej I Love You’. Despite Chiru’s presence, the film couldn’t get any additional mileage or buzz that was expected to bring by Chiru.

The same is the case with Sudheer Babu’s Sammohanam. Despite Mahesh Babu’s attendance as the chief guest, the film failed to garner any buzz – be it in trade circuits or among the movie lovers. Even as the film is gearing up for release this Friday, the film is carrying poor buzz.

And here comes NTR for the pre-release event of Kalyan Ram’s Naa Nuvve. Even Tarak couldn’t get extra buzz to the film. However, the same Tarak’s promotion for Mahanti did help to reach into public.

Nonetheless Rajini came for the Kaala pre-release event in Hyderabad. But Kaala ended as a disaster with poor openings in AP and US. The performance of Rajini’s previous films including Kabali, Lingaa has a telling impact on Kaala’s poor openings. Although the film got mixed talk, the film ended as a dud at Box Office.

Same is the case with Nagarjuna’s Officer which became all-time disaster – Octuple Disaster as the film couldn’t recover 1/8th of its investment. Even Nag couldn’t rescue the bad film. His interviews, promotions, RGV’s promotion gimmicks of releasing sound clips have no effect.

And earlier we have seen Pawan Kalyan attending the post-release event of Allu Arjun’s Naa Peru Surya which ended as a colossal flop. Trade circuits are saying that not an extra ticket was cut after Pawan openly endorsed the film.

What one has to observe here is the changing pattern of audiences interest. Doing an event in grand scale and getting a star hero as the chief guest is not just enough for a film to create buzz among people. The film’s promos, trailers, the track record of cast are also play pivotal role in bringing openings. Simply put, a film has to naturally create interest among the film lovers. Then, the film would take off well. And how it performs overall depends on the content.

If the content of a film is not interesting, movie lovers are outrightly turning down such films irrespective of who is endorsing the film, who are all backing the film and who is the cast of the film. On flip side, the presence of stars do help films that have good content. But that’s only a possibility.

We have Octopuses and many Lagadapati Sreedhars around the world, predicting the outcome of some event, competition or a future happening much in advance. Here comes one such ‘Prediction Star’ who is giving a terrific forecast for the movies he is part of.

Apparently, senior actor Naresh has turned to play father roles on the silver screen. Then he’s likely to comment about the films he’s part of prior to their release. He will be predicting the result much in advance as he feels that his experience lets him judge the result.

“All the films I’ve predicted including Chalo, Tholiprema, Rangasthalam, Bharat Anu Nenu, Mahanati were big hits. Next will be Sammohanam” he said today, adding that his prediction will not go wrong due to some reasons. “It’s not overconfidence. It is Judgement. Indraganti’s poetry and Sudheer Babu’s performance is going to rock you” he added.

Naresh heaped praises on Sudheer Babu for the changeover and also he says that Indraganti will be mesmerising audiences with his new age approach to his love story of a common man and a starlet. Okay, will this ‘prediction’ comes true and makes Naresh, the ‘Prediction Specialist’ of Tollywood. Wait for a day!!

After a long time, Goan hip siren Ileana D’cruz is all set to comeback to Tollywood. Probably it looks like she got a dream role of playing a masala role in a commercial movie after a long time that she said yes to Raviteja’s Amar Akbar Antony immediately.

Ever since her name is out, there are doubts if this film will get any positive buzz due to Ileana’s presence. Because she’s not only out of form but also out of shape as she turned little chubby. However, the hottie has decided to give a befitting reply to all such doubts and speculations.

Posting some of her hottest pics from Fiji island where she’s dancing around in bikinis and promoting that country’s tourism, Ileana is currently giving sleepless nights to all. Especially her social media shares wherein she’s lying flat in a bikini and teasing them with her curvaceous sex appeal is squeezing hearts.

It looks like Ileana’s bikini message has reached Tollywood after she let the guard down in Fiji, as her fans are expecting to bounce back as a mighty glamorous star after years. Ileana last made some sound in Tollywood in 2012.

Just a couple of months back, there was a lot of confusion. Suddenly, a lady called Sri Reddy popped up out of nowhere and created a huge scene. She was invited by television channels and made allegations against industry biggies.

Incidentally, this was around the same time when a critic-turned-television regular Kathi Mahesh was making all kind of allegations on Pawan Kalyan.

After a point, Sri Reddy too turned her guns towards Pawan Kalyan. After taking his time, finally, Pawan Kalyan decided to do something.

He took up the issue and went to Film Chamber. The other mega heroes immediately came out to support him in full force. The Chamber too had to react and respond. Meetings were held, decisions were taken.

At the time it was announced that media or at least a section of media will be banned from covering or talking about entertainment news.

But a few days passed. Nothing appeared to have changed. Then one was left wondering if mega stars or any other star had to bow down to the power of media.

However, now it appears that both parties have come to a touch me not stance. You stay off us, we will stay off you kind of understanding.

Already, people like Sri Reddy have become persona non-grata. There are no discussions with controversial film personalities on channels.

So, in all, looks like Pawan Kalyan’s effort did not go waste after all.

Actor Vishal Reddy, currently riding the crest of success with his hit film Abhimanyudu is embarrassed and appalled by actress Sri Reddy’s naming game.

Vishal says if she can name Telugu superstar Nani, she can name anyone next.

Sri Reddy has accused Nani of seeking and getting sexual favours from her following which the actor had sent her a legal notice for defamation.

Vishal, jumping to Nani’s defence, said: “I know him well. He is a very good friend of mine. But I am not defending him for personal reasons. This latest accusation by her (Sri Reddy) is perhaps the most outrageous yet.

Anybody who knows Nani knows how particular he is in his behaviour towards men and women. She should come forward with evidence of her accusations rather than just naming anyone.

It seems like she’s picking her targets randomly. For all we know, I might be the next one to be named by her.”

Vishal said the Telugu film industry is in the thrall of an unprecedented embarrassment.

“You never know who will be named next. I seriously think such grave allegations must be substantiated with evidence. Our laws about sex crimes are lopsided. Any woman can make the allegation and the law will act on that allegation and give the accused a chance to defend himself only later. This is not right.”

Having said this, Vishal feels the existence of the casting couch is very much a reality in the entertainment industry.

“In the Tamil and Telugu film industry, any Tom, Dick or Harry can open an office claiming to be a producer and ‘audition’ girls for roles. The stereotypical image of the starlet with her pushy Amma allowing the so-called producers or his assistant to take advantage of the young girl, is not off the mark,” he reveals

However, Vishal thinks this cliched view of the casting couch is now being subverted.

“You can’t just pick on people at random accusing them of sexual exploitation. Of course, exploitation exists, and not just in the entertainment industry. But that doesn’t mean people with impeccable reputations can be targeted,” he added.

For the past few months, Sri Reddy, an upcoming actress in Telugu film industry, has been making several allegations against top celebrities of the industry. She accused that the industry has turned blind eye to the casting couch issues.

To everyone’s shock, she protested topless before the Movies Artiste Association building.

When Ashwini Dutt was neck-deep into financial issues, Mahesh Babu had given his dates to bail out the senior producer. But Ashwini Dutt dilly-dallied on the project for the last 7 years. Mahesh finally offered the veteran producer some royalty so that he can transfer his dates to Dil Raju for Mahesh25. Ashwini Dutt happily accepted Mahesh’s offer as he will get profits with zero investment.

And then comes the twist. Ashwini Dutt’s banner Vyjayanthi Movies bounced back to limelight with the blockbuster success of Mahanati. Dutt’s daughters Priyanka and Swapna are now insisting that they will co-produce Mahesh25 along with Dil Raju, instead of acting as ‘presenters’ for the movie.

This seems to have left Dil Raju shocked. Dil Raju has been solely overseeing the pre-production work for Mahesh25 since last year. He is unwilling to share the producer credit with Ashwini Dutt, and finally the issue went straight to Mahesh, who is having a hard time to take a decision as he shares a good rapport with both the producers. Meanwhile, the film’s shoot has been delayed by a week.

Officer film has created a unique record at box office by collecting the lowest distributor share among notable films.

The film has beaten biggest flop record set by Balakrishna’s Parama Veera Chakra too.

Although Officer’s full run distributor share is being publicized as Rs. 1 crore, in reality it is way less than that number.

The film collected around Rs. 70 lakh share on its first day and ran into deficits from day 2.

Most of the theaters were into deficits that trade trackers didn’t minus those from the shares collected. They reported the collections on percentage basis which is why Officer is able to reach Rs. 1 crore mark as per trade circles.

This is the most humiliating failure for a top hero like Nagarjuna. He was rewarded with career turning Shiva when he entrusted Ram Gopal Varma for the first time and now he is letdown by the same director by recording a historic flop.

Nagarjuna who doesn’t mince words when talking about his failures somehow kept mum about Officer’s disastrous performance. He simply stated that he has ‘moved on’.

He lambasted director Veerabhadram publicly after Bhai tanked at box office. The young director was not able to recover post Nagarjuna’s outburst.

Nag also criticized Krishna Vamsi post Chandralekha’s failure. Why is he silent over Officer’s debacle?

It would be interesting to listen to Nagarjuna’s opinion on Officer’s historic failure in his future interactions with the media.

Keerthy Suresh who mesmerized the audiences with her absolutely amazing performance as “Mahanati” Savitri has not signed any new movie in Tollywood yet.Except “Agnyaathavaasi”, her success rate is terrific in Telugu cinema with three hits in her kitty.

There is a talk that Rajamouli has approached her for his mega multi-starrer “RRR”, the insiders say this is not true.He has praised her performance but he has not asked for this film as of now. He has not finished the final script yet.

Top filmmakers are evincing keen interest to take her in but nothing has been materialized.She is also not in hurry. She doesn’t want to spoil the all the praise she got now by accepting some masala movie.

She is looking for movies that have meatier roles. She has also hiked her remuneration a bit. So, the makers will be considering all these before approaching her.

Kalyan Ram Nandamuri pinned lot of hopes on Naa Nuvve to put him back on track. Kalyan, who lost track after scoring a big hit with Patas, is trying his luck with an out and out romantic drama.

Kalyan Ram is known for doing action based mass masala potboilers. He is going for an image makeover with Naa Nuvve.Tamanna is the female lead in the film directed by Jayendra. Although the team has done their best to promote the film, it has hardly made any buzz to this point.

Despite multiple trailers and public events, Naa Nuvve failed to generate curiosity among film buffs. The disinterest of ticket paying public is reflecting on its advance booking.Team Naa Nuvve would be hoping that the film opens to positive word of mouth to pick up pace at ticket windows to cash in on the Eid weekend.

Naa Nuvve is clashing with Sammohanam and Salman’s Race 3 and therefore it needs to open to very good word of mouth and reviews to stay on top in weekend sales.

In the recent times, the awards functions in Telugu industry got little spicier with young heroes liking to host them. Some pairs like Rana-Nani, Sirish-Navdeep and others have got huge attention for their oratory skills, comedy and overall show.

Treading in the same path, now two more young heroes are trying their luck. Not being able to score some hit films in the recent times, struggling hero Sandeep Kishan is now going to host the upcoming Filmfare (Telugu) Awards event. Joining him is none other than another struggling hero Rahul Ravindran, who actually hails from Tamilnadu but succeeded a bit in Telugu industry.

Though the event will be telecasted sometime later, it will be happening on the event of June 16th in Hyderabad. We hear that both Sandeep and Rahul are preparing the one liners, jokes and coming up with new themes to host this year’s awards event.

Earlier when Sirish hosted the event, many felt that the comedy timing in him has opened up big time. And then Rana and Nani also proved how beautifully they could host an event. And now, if Sandeep and Rahul could also prove in the same fashion, it might help their dimmed careers a bit.

After the release of Srimanthudu, Mahesh Babu adopted two villages: Siddhapuram in Telangana and Burripalem in Andhra Pradesh.While the pace of work in these two villages was lethargic initially, it became discernibly faster on the eve of release of Bharat Ane Nenu.

In Burripalem, the allegation is that donations were taken for fencing the plants.Mahesh Babu is one of the super stars of Indian cinema. He gets around Rs 20 crore as remuneration for a film plus share in profits.

Brahmotsavam, Spyder, Srimanthudu and Bharat Ane Nenu earnings of Mahesh easily total around Rs 100 crore. These apart from his brand endorsements put him in the billionaire club.Therefore, earmarking around Rs 5 crore each for these two villages might not be a big deal for Mahesh.

However, what is attracting attention is the speculation that corporate bodies are also being approached to finance the development of these villages which brings us to the question: How much is Mahesh spending from his own pocket?

Industry is abuzz with gossip that Namrata recently met the Chairman of Natco Pharma and got a cheque for Rs 25 lakh from him for the development of Siddhapuram.So, is this amount over and above what Mahesh has committed to those villages or part of it? However, at the end of the day, it is good if those villages ultimately end up with benefits and development.

Currently, a car number that was acquired by the production Haarika and Haasini Creations is raising many speculations. And going by that number, many feel that they are actually gifting that luxury vehicle to their present film’s hero, none other than Jr NTR.

For a brand new Range Rover Velar (P25) petrol variant vehicle which costs around 1.3+ crores on road, other day the producer has acquired the number TS 09 EZ 9999. And that number is acquired by them in the auction for around 10 lakhs 46 thousand rupees. (10,46,000/-). And that number they have got is what leads to the rumours.

Jr NTR is known for his fetish towards using all-9s for his cars. His current Range Rover that was gifted by his father-in-law and registered on Narne Constructions name in West Godavari AP also has the AP 37 XX 9999 only. One wonders if producer Chinna Babu is gifting this new Range Rover to Tarak on the eve of the hero doing their film.

On the other hand, some say that Chinna Babu got this car and the number for his director Trivikram. We may know more details in the coming days.