Nandamuri Balakrishna’s 102nd film, ‘Jai Simha’ opened to decent collections this Friday, taking the 3rd best opening of Balayya’s career after Gautamiputra Satakarni and Paisa Vasool.

The Balayya-Nayanathara starrer earned a decent 12 Cr at worldwide box office, with a distributor share of 8 Cr, on the opening day. The share from the Telugu states is 7 Cr. This is a decent opening considering the competition at box office and relatively low buzz.

Area wise break up of share:

Nizam – 1,16,00,000

Ceded – 1,53,00,000

Nellore – 37,00,957

Guntur – 1,15,48,191

Krishna – 46,17,388

West – 81,00,000

East – 85,26,338

Uttharandhra – 75,00,000

Total 1st day AP & TS share – 7.08cr (Gross – 9.70cr)  

Total 1st day worldwide share – 8.25cr (Gross – 12cr)

The film has received mixed talk on day 1 so the second day is crucial to find out how the film consolidates its position at box office. Festival holidays and manageable pre-release business (approx. 27 Cr) are the advantages for this outdated mass entertainer.

Pawan Kalyan and Mahesh Babu, arguably the current two top stars of Telugu cinema, are the strong competitors on professional front. The latest discussion in film circles is that the two star heroes look to be competing in giving losses to buyers of their films.

Of Mahesh babu’s last 5 releases, four (Nenokkadine, Aagadu, Brahmotsavam and SPYder) turned out to be epic disasters, each a bigger disaster than the previous one. SPYder reportedly incurred around 70 Cr loss. No star hero of South has delivered as many duds in the last couple of years and thus incurred incurred a cumulative losses over 150 Cr, according to trade reports.

Going by Pawan Kalyan’s filmography, he seems to be competing with Mahesh in this ‘disaster’ aspect. Sardaar was a huge disaster, Katamarayudu also incurred around 25 Cr loss, and its early to say but trade predicts the losses of Agnyaathavaasi to be more or less equal to SPYder’s.

With the two top stars delivering dud after dud, incurring unprecedented amount of losses with each film, distributors are baffled. For now, fans and distributor community is hopeful that Mahesh will bounce back with ‘Bharat Ane Nenu’, but in the case of Pawan, there is apparently no hope.

Once Sankranthi fever goes off, it’s summer season that everyone looks forward to when it comes to entertainment. At the same time to beat the scorching sun, people indulge in sipping cool drinks. As it also happens to be the season of mangoes, the demand for mango drinks also takes a hike. Common, what is the discussion all about? Here it goes.

Beautiful actress Samantha is the brand ambassador of mango-based drink Maaza for a long time. And now, our stylish star Allu Arjun recently signed to endorse the other leading mango drink brand, Frooti, becoming the face of it in South India. When compared to the winter, these two brands try to shot up their promotions more in summer. There starts the interesting thing.

Film lovers are now expecting that it would be going to be a war between Samantha and Allu Arjun very soon as they lock horns with their respective mango drinks through advertisements. Currently, some ad-companies that work for these brands are said to be coming up with creative commercials to woo consumers. We have to see what sort of creative stuff they will be coming up with.

Regardless of the season, there are so many fans for both Maaza and Frooti. And their brand ambassadors also increased the values of respective brands, we have to say. On the work front, Sam is busy with her upcoming movie Rangasthalam while Bunny is shooting for the much-anticipated film Naa Peru Surya Naa Illu India.

Popular Television host turned film director Ohmkar, who made a mark with the successful ‘Raju Gari Gadhi’ series, has materialized his next film. It will star Bellamkonda Srinivas in lead role.

The film is said to be a big budget project set against Sports backdrop. Bellamkonda, who is currently shooting for Sriwaas’ “Sakshyam”, will move to Ohmkar’s film after wrapping up the said film. Like for his earlier films, high budget will be pumped in this Bellamkonda-starrer as well.

The biggest attraction for this project could be the backdrop itself as not many films have been made against Sports backdrop in Telugu. Its a welcome change for Ohmkar too from the horror comedy genre.

Ohmkar is currently busy giving finishing touches to the script. Meanwhile, Bellamkonda is shooting for ‘Sakshyam’, which stars Pooja Hegde as female lead.

Every year, Sankranthi season is surely a festive season for the movie lovers. Last year we have out of four movies released, three turned out to be super hits. But all that vibe is not going to be there this year if we go by the reviews of present released films.

There were so many expectations on Agnyaathavaasi that came out in the super hit combo of Pawan Kalyan and Trivikram, but the movie is turning out to be too sour to bare. Then many thought that at least Balayya will start this new year with a smashing hit but Jai Simha has been receiving mixed talk. On the other end, even Suriya’s dubbing movie Gang also opened to average talk only. All this scenario is giving good scope to Raj Tarun now.

Raj Tarun’s Rangula Ratnam which is gearing up to hit the silver screens on January 14th is one movie to look forward to. Made with a budget of 5 crores by Annapurna Studios, the film is looking somewhat promising for youths. If the movie succeeds in gaining positive reception from the audience, then chances are there for it to become a blockbuster.

Struggling at a market of only 5-10 crores till now, Rangula Ratnam can change the game for Raj Tarun and also could make him a star hero. This is a golden opportunity for the youngster to score a brownie. Will he prove his worth? Let’s see!!

Directed by Sri Rajani, the film has Chitra Shukla playing the female lead. Nagarjuna who produced Raj Tarun’s debut movie Uyyala Jampala has bankrolled this project.

Actress Taapsee Pannu feels social media has given people the power to mock someone easily, and says that it can “genuinely crush someones confidence”.

“I think with the power social media has given us, it is so easy to mock someone nowadays. What people don’t understand is that it can genuinely crush someone’s confidence. Just because a female does not walk by the conventional rules, people like to call her by different names which is highly upsetting,” Taapsee said in a statement.

The actress, who has been trolled for flaunting a bikini and wearing short dress on social media, will be addressing the issue through TV show “Troll Police”, which brings celebrities and their trolls face-to-face.

Talking about it, she said: “I too have been trolled, and through ‘MTV Troll Police’, I really want to convey the message to youngsters out there that do not use internet anonymity to shed the veneer of decency.”

Taapsee, who now has 5 million-plus followers on Instagram, is a part of the show for the first episode. She will come face-to-face with Ashish, a student from Lucknow and a self proclaimed social media blogger who trolls her on social media platforms.

“It’s humiliating! After achieving so much for yourself as an independent woman, this is how you get appreciated by the men of our society. After reading all these comments, sometimes I feel that I have opted for a wrong profession. Going forward if you see any of your friend or relative trolling someone then please share this experience with them.”The show will go on air on MTV on Saturday.

Despite scoring only flops, somehow the lack of talented fresh faces is making filmmakers opt for seniors like Tamanna and Kajal Agarwal. That’s the reason these hotties are having some more films in their kitty while none of their recent performance is not so impressive.

Despite losing her crown status to other newcomers, milky siren has films of Kalyan Ram, Sandeep Kishan and Queen remake in hand. Cut to this most awaited remake, Telugu version ‘Queen’ is being helmed by director Neelakanta along with the Malayalam version. We are hearing a disturbing report about this film.

For the sake of getting freshness to the scenes, we hear that Tamanna is actively involving in the script and asking the director to approach each scene in a different way. While Neelakanta himself is known for his new style of filmmaking, it seems like the heroine’s interference in his work didn’t go well.

Some unconfirmed reports are indicating that uncomfortable Neelakanta walked out of this project while he will be carving Malayalam version remake with Manjima Mohan. We have to see if there will be any official comment about this.

Dances,Costumes,And locations. These three ingredients always make to the core in any of Allu Arjun’s songs. But these days, he is taking extra care of dances, looks and locations. He’s always trying to bring something new to the table.

Currently working on “Naa Peru Surya Naa Illu India”, we hear that Allu Arjun is now working out another interesting song for his fans. This time he’s picking a new costume, location and also a new choreographer for one particular song composed by Vishal-Sekhar duo. In all likelihood, this song will be shot in Paris by international dance choreographers, while costumes will be shopped in Europe by Bunny and his designer.

In Julayi, we have Bunny picking costumes from Dubai and also shooting there. For S/o Satyamurthy, Sarrainodu and DJ as well, he went to various international destinations to pick songs. In Racegurram he amazed viewers with dubstep dance movement. In Sarrainodu we got various mass dance moves while DJ got a touch from Bollywood dance masters. Cut to visuals, while a couple of S/o Satyamurthy songs were shot in Europe, for Sarrainodu they went to Bolivia and Abu Dhabi was the backdrop for some DJ songs.

And Bunny will bring that versatility to a stylish song yet again.