Surprised and buoyed by the widest release his film, ‘Agnyaathavaasi’ is having in the US, Pawan Kalyan has thanked his overseas fans via a video message.

Agnyaathavaasi is going to release in a mammoth 550 screens across US. This is the biggest release for any Indian film in US. In order to thank his fans for giving his film such a record release, Pawan shared a video message. The ‘Gabbar Singh’ actor said that he was pleasantly surprised and very happy with the massive release.

In the video, Pawan lauded the Telugu NRIs, both students and working people, for leaving their states, country and moving to an entirely new place and earning a respectful living there. ‘I have immense respect for all of you. We, crores of Indians, will stand by you if you get into any trouble there,’ Pawan assured.

Film industry blesses those with back to back successes, but the ones lacking successes are made to wait for longer times. One such director is none other than Meher Ramesh, whose films like Billa, Kantri and Sakthi have all ended up as colossal disasters. Since then, he’s struggling to get it right in Tollywood.

In the recent times, Meher stunned everyone by moving close to Superstar Mahesh. He has directed him in the ad made for a real-estate group based out of Amaravathi, AP and later found tailing Mahesh at various events. Then rumours have come out that Mahesh is likely to offer a film to him.

While those rumours have rested down, now Meher Ramesh is seen travelling with VV Vinayak. After the disaster of Akhil, the dashing director found it difficult to get right script and he’s said to be taking the Sakthi director’s help to carve out Sai Dharam Tej’s “Intelligent” now. Though Vinayak directed Khaidi No. 150 in the middle, that was completely taken care Megastar and Co.

Cut to Meher, we have to see how far he gets benefitted by tailing Vinayak after doing the same with Mahesh for a while. Which hero is going to offer dates to him and which producer will come forward to bankroll his film? Only time will tell.

Amidst the speculations that he copied the story of Agnyaathavaasi from a French film, reports emerge that top director Trivikram Sreenivas has planned to direct his first official remake.

On the eve of senior hero Venkatesh’s birthday last month, an official announcement came from Harika & Hassine Creations banner that they would bankroll a project in the combination of the senior hero and Trivikram. Latest reports suggest that the film is the official remake of hit Bollywood film, ‘Jolly LLB 2’, featuring Akshay Kumar in lead role.

Couple of months ago, reports emerged that producer Radha Krishna of Harika & Hassine banner acquired the Telugu remake rights of ‘Jolly LLB 2’. Then, it was highly speculated that he bought the remake rights on the advice of Pawan and that the ‘Gabbar Singh’ star will play the lead in the remake. But, it has now come to light that it was Trivikram who told Radha Krishna to buy the remake rights, and he chose to direct Venky in the film.

Trivikram is currently awaiting the release of Agnyaathavaasi. Next, he will direct NTR Jr in a high budget film. ‘Jolly LLB 2’ remake, the first official remake to be directed by Trivikram, will roll in the second half of this year.

It may be noted that comedian turned hero Sapthagiri has already remade ‘Jolly LLB’ in Telugu as ‘Sapthagiri LLB’.

Dil Raju, the most successful producer-distributor has turned the fortunes of several actors while scoring hits for himself. Bold beauty Pooja Hegde seems to have become the new blue-eyed beauty of Dil Raju’s banner.

After foraying into Tollywood with ‘Oka Laila Kosam’ and ‘Mukunda’, Pooja went off the radar for more than two years. When she was almost forgotten, she made a striking comeback with Allu Arjun’s DJ. Even though it was director Harish Shankar’s idea to sign Pooja, she couldn’t have come on board without Dil Raju’s consent as DJ was his production venture.  Despite the film’s mixed result, Pooja’s glamour show and scintillating dances placed her directly into the league of star heroines.

Reports say that Dil Raju was so impressed with Pooja’s talent that he has offered her two more movies in his banner. Whereas she has just recently signed on the dotted line to play the female lead in Mahesh Babu-Vamsi Paidipally’s film, a joint production venture of Dil Raju and Ashwini Dutt, Pooja has reportedly given her verbal consent to act in Raju’s “Srinivasa Kalyanam’ as well. Starring Nithin in lead role, the family entertainer will be directed by ‘Shathamanam Bhavathi’ fame Sathish Vegesna.

Pooja currently has Bellamkonda’s “Sakshyam” on floors. She is also doing a special song in Ram Charan’s “Rangasthalam”. With Dil Raju’s boost, her career is taking off in the right direction and at the right pace.

There has been plenty of visible commonalities between Pawan-Trivikram’s “Attharintki Daredi’ and ‘Agnyaathavaasi’. Pawan as rich guy, two heroines, a yesteryear heroine playing a key role, Boman Irani, Special Song etc. No one can tell whether Trivikram is banking on certain sentiments or the story of Agnyaathavaasi demanded those particular similarities, but we hear that the ace director has has retained another AD attraction in the new film.

Reports suggest that music director Anirudh will make a special appearance in a song in Agnyaathavaasi. It is heard that Trivikram wanted Anirudh to make an appearance alongside Pawan in ‘Kodaka Koteswara Rao’ song for a few seconds and the young MD obliged. Those particular visuals are touted to be a special attraction in the film.

If one recalls, Devi Sri Prasad, who composed the music of Attharintiki Daredi, also made a special appearance in ‘Ninnu Chudagane’ song that featured Pawan and Samantha. While the song became a chartbuster, the film turned out to be industry hit.

This particular reason could have persuaded Trivikram to ask Anirudh make an appearance in Agnyaathavaasi, opine fans, who are very excited.

Director Teja, who made a comeback with ‘Nene Raju Nene Mantri’, seems to be leaving no stone unturned to live up to the expectations as he has been given the opportunity to direct the biggest film of his career yet, Sr NTR biopic.

Teja, who is yet to find an actress to play the role of NTR’s wife Basavatharakam, is reportedly taking the help of Facial recognition software to find a suitable actress. The software analyses a person’s facial structure with the help of a digital video camera. The features of Basavatarakam’s face will be mapped with that of the aspirants, and the actress with the most similarities will be zeroed in.

Teja has resorted to use the software in order to make the cumbersome yet crucial casting process easier, especially as the makers have received huge number of applications for Basavatarakam’s role. The chosen candidates will be auditioned and one actress will be finalized in the end.

Meanwhile, Teja has recently commenced the shooting of a special teaser of NTR biopic. It will be released on the occasion of the legendary actor-politician’s death anniversary, on Jan 18.

For a long time, many epic films are being made in Bollywood but the one that came from the South gave them those sleepless nights. With Baahubali scoring such an amazing victory, many b-town makers are now looking forward to coming up with such a magnanimous film themselves.

Despite supporting many Baahubalian south movies like 2 Point O these days, ace filmmaker Karan Johar is still at heart looking forward to making something on the scale of Baahubali. And for that, he has now come up with an interesting team to throw that “Brahmastra” on cinema industry.

Very soon, a new film featuring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt under the direction of Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani fame Ayaan Mukherjee is likely to be rolled out. This film’s name is “Brahmastra” and it will release in three parts, a trilogy. Reports are coming that the film franchise is actually based on the mythological novel trilogy written by Amish Tripathi.

The Neelakanta series, which includes the books Immortals Of Meluha, The Secret Of The Nagas and The Oath Of Vayuputras, are said to be now getting converted to celluloid. Though Karan Johar hasn’t revealed anything about this, these novels actually deal with the story of bringing one ‘brahmastra’ from an adjoining kingdom to avert a major war. Due to that connection, and as there three books in lieu of Karan’s trilogy talk, many are feeling that he’s talking about the film version of these novels only.

Anyway, it looks like Karan will not sleep until he brings out a very own Hindi Baahubali to the silver screen.

The story of first ever freedom fighter of India, Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy, is getting a visual form through Megastar Chiranjeevi’s Sye Raa. And this film has its taste of rumours now and then, but finally, the film is on floors and shooting of the second schedule will start very soon.

Right now Chiranjeevi has cleanly shaven his much-needed beard and the reason behind that is, actually he’s said to be going for a facial scanning. This is a process where the VFX team will reconstruct his model in a software for using it in graphics purpose. There happens to be a huge planning behind this.

Actually, Chiranjeevi will be doing some breathtaking stunts with horse rides and the scenes where he attacks a base camp of English battalion will need him also do some risky stuns. All those stunts will be partially done by Chiru, and the continuation will be done by VFX teams from Mumbai, says a source. His mega stunts will be heavily supported by visual effects, making it look clueless for audiences to find what is real and what is computer generated. For now, Chiru is in Mumbai to take part in these prep sessions related to CG work.

Meanwhile, Sye Raa team is said to be waiting for February for the new schedule of the film to kick start. We hear that in the 3rd week of January we will have Nayanthara flying to Hyderabad for look test of her character.

Unlike his counterparts Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu and Ram Charan, Young Rebel Star Prabhas doesn’t have an official production house, but UV Creations is a sort of his home production. He has been the face of UV Creations, and the promoter of their films. Prabhas attended the pre-release event of UV Creations’ most recent film, “Mahanubhavudu” as well. But, the ‘Baahubali’ star is going to give a miss to their latest release, “Gang”.

UV Creations is releasing Suriya’s “Gang” (Telugu dubbed version of Thaanaa Serndha Koottam) on January 12, during Sankranthi festival season. The film’s pre-release event will be conducted on Jan 5 in Hyderabad. Unlike the earlier films of UV Creations, this Suriya-starrer unfortunately can’t get free publicity as Prabhas wouldn’t be attending the event.

We have learnt that Prabhas is currently on vacation in US and hence he is giving a miss to the pre-release event of Gang. Suriya and film’s leading lady, Keerthy Suresh are expected to grace the event to be held on 5th Jan at JRC Convention Centre in Hyderabad.

After foraying into film industry with Prabhas’ “Mirchi”, UV Creations is bankrolling the star hero’s new film, ‘Saaho’.

South Indian diva Nayanthara has completed fourteen glorious years in tinsel town and she has rightfully earned the title of lady super star.

Her recent choices of female oriented movies have garnered positive reviews from both her fans and critics alike.

With the immense success of her latest outing Aramm, Nayanthara had further cemented her position as the reigning female superstar of Tollywood.

The beautiful actress had once again proved that she alone can navigate a movie to success without the presence of a heavy weight hero.

Nayanthara who has some interesting projects in her kitty for 2018 is hoping for another amazing run in the box office.

On New Year day she wrote an open letter to her countless fans and admirers wishing them happiness on new year and also thanking them for their ‘unconditional love.’

She wrote that her fans had made her ‘believe that sincere and unconditional love exists.’

The Aramm actress wrote, “You all have made me realize that no matter what, we should just keep working harder with utmost dedication and leave the rest to God!”