Basking in the success of Telugu action-drama “Duvvada Jagannadham”, director Harish Shankar says his next yet-untitled outing in the language will be a concept-based film.

“I just have an idea. It will be a concept-based film about the emotional conflict in romance. I haven’t started writing yet and I will make an official announcement when the time is right,” Harish told IANS.

Asked if he has finalised the cast in his mind, he said: “It’s too early to think about the cast. I let my script choose my actors. It’s time consuming and you have to go with the film.”His latest film “Duvvada Jagannadham”, starring Allu Arjun and Pooja Hegde, is making a killing at the box office.

In just a week since its release, the film grossed over Rs 100 crore, according to its makers.The film, produced by Dil Raju, marked the first-time collaboration of Harish and Arjun.Harish is currently touring theatres in US, greeting and thanking fans for their overwhelming response.

Sridevi is eagerly awaiting the release of her film MOM, co-starring Akshaye Khanna and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.The 53-year-old actress, who started her career as a child actor at the age of four with M A Thirumugham’s Thunaivan (1969), told news agency PTI that she has never let success go to her head.

“I have never felt that I am a star. It never came to my mind. The day you start feeling it, you will move back (in your career). For me stardom is feeling happiness and being positive,” PTI quoted Sridevi as saying.

The Lamhe actress added that the love of her fans and producer’s faith has motivated her to do better in her career.

“I am thankful to my fans and producers that I am on my toes all the time to do better. The day you feel you have achieved it all or you are something then you are gone and that thought never came to me. And it should not come also,” PTI quoted Sridevi as saying.Sridevi told PTI that she ‘never planned’ to become an actress.

“I was so thrilled and my mother was also excited. When I came on the sets for the first time it was like a dream. We just thought we would do just one film but the offers kept coming. And soon I started doing two shifts a day. I was enjoying the process,” Sridevi told PTI.

Sridevi, who has completed over five decades in the film industry, said that people in the industry are ‘more professional’ now.

“They (industry people) have started valuing time, scripts are being given in advance and everything has become technically advanced today. They (writers) are coming up with different and interesting characters for women that are bold and challenging and that is amazing. People are willing to produce and take chances,” PTI quoted Sridevi as saying.MOM is Sridevi’s 300th film.

Sridevi last featured in 2015 Tamil movie Puli. Her last Bollywood film was English Vinglish, directed by Gauri Shinde. The film was her first movie after a gap of 15 years.Sridevi’s MOM will release in theatres on July 7.

Two back to back movies of Allu Arjun have didn’t do well at USA box office and there are no two thoughts about this. All the failure should be attributed to the mass content of the movies Sarrainodu and DJ Duvvada Jagannadham, which really dint clicked with USA audiences.

Time and again, it’s proved that NRI audiences are not liking to see the mass-content on silver screen. Either due to their lifestyle, culture change or other reason, they are loving only family subjects and class entertaining movies. That’s the reason films like Pelli Choopulu, Bhale Bhale Magadivoyi, A..Aa, Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavadu, Gentleman have got good returns against investment. Even though a mass film is decent hit here in Telugu states, it ended up as a disaster abroad. Balayya’s Legend, Allu Arjun’s Sarrainodu and Venkatesh’s Babu Bangaram are few examples.

However the only hero who’s able to pull a mega feat is none other than Megastar Chiranjeevi. His much awaited comeback to silver screen and most of the 40+ aged NRIs being old time Chiranjeevi fans, Khaidi No 150 amassed 2.5 million dollars (gross) from USA box office alone. And we could not now expect the same for Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy in case if the film sounds completely massy.

Keeping in view of the changing market dynamics, definitely Telugu filmmakers and heroes should pick content that will be liked by both A,B,C centers in Telugu states and also all those audiences in USA and other countries. Otherwise USA distributors might not be daring to invest huge sums on telugu films in the coming days. Already there is buzz that distributors are thinking twice to buy Pawan-Trivikram movie, Mahesh’s Spyder and Jr NTR’s Jai Lava Kusa. Because they want to know if the content inside these films is mass or class or mixed.

Neeraja Kona, who has become the most favorite stylist for many Tollywood celebrities, is unleashing her new penchants one by one.

Last year, she made her debut as lyricist with Sai Dharam Tej’s ‘Thikka’. She has penned a song for Gopichand’s upcoming film ‘Gautham Nanda’ too. If Tej is credited for having turned this popular stylist into a lyricist, Natural Star Nani has made her a distributor now.

An excited Neeraja took to twitter to announce gleefully that she has turned a film distributor with Nani’s upcoming film ‘Ninnu Kori’. She will release ‘Ninnu Kori’ in Dallas region in the US. Film distribution is as risky as it is lucrative so this popular designer seems to have decided to start it small, and with a minimum guarantee film, a Nani starrer.

Starring Nani, Niveda Thomas and Aadhi Pinesetty, ‘Ninnu Kori’ is slated for release on July 7. The romantic drama is set for a huge release in the US.

Mass Maharaj Ravi Teja is known for securing his personal life from professional one and he was never been the subject of controversies in his career. But the death of his younger brother Bharath, who met with an accident last week, is causing an unintended damage to his star image.

Having unattended the final rites of his brother Bharath, Ravi Teja and his parents drew a lot of criticism on social media. Even the final rites conducted by a junior artist from film industry did not go well with netizens.

While the situation forced the commenters to blame Ravi Teja for not being there at brother’s cremation, some people close to actor said he and his parents kept away from cremation as they couldn’t digest to see Bharath’s crushed face. On the other hand, the energetic hero opened up on the growing debate in a recent interview.

‘All of us (family) were shocked to hear about Bharath’s death. My father’s age is 85+ and he could not take the fact that his son is no more. Both my parents went into depression and fell sick to learn the news about my brother. At that time, I had to stay with my parents to care of them and sent another brother Raghu to take care of final rites but he’s asked not to take part in it. So, the funeral activity was performed by our Babai (uncle) and he’s not someone out of our family.’ – clarified Ravi Teja in his interview.

The actor went on to question credibility of media for writing him off and wondered ‘how can they come up with such bad comments on a man who passed away and insult us with their faux pas articles?’

Hero Tarun, who earned the image of ‘quintessential Lover Boy’ of Tollywood in early 2000s, is all set to make a sort of comeback with a romantic drama, ‘Idi Naa Love Story’.

Two months ago, the film’s teaser was released by Nagarjuna Akkineni. With colorful visuals and a captivating tone, the teaser looked promising, and it managed to generate decent buzz for the film. Tarun, who has been passing through a dry phase, has very high expectations on this film.

Tipped to be a subtle love story, ‘Idi Naa Love Story’ is the Telugu remake of a hit Kannada film. It has been a long time since Tarun has done a full-length love story. His last film ‘Veta’ released in 2014. Besides the proven subject, the romantic genre is another advantage for this erstwhile Lover Boy, Tarun to possibly win back his lost stardom.

Heroine Oviya Helen, who has acted in good number of Tamil and a few Malayalam films, is making her debut in Telugu cinema with ‘Idi Naa Love Story’. The makers have recently released ‘Ye Nimishamlo’ song from the film. We need to wait and see if Tarun can capitalize on this buzz created by the promos or not.Release date has yet to be announced.

Suddenly a negative trend has started emerging about collections of a big star’s film. Even when Khaidi No 150 collected 100 crores share and Janata Garage made 80+ crores share, there was no noise about the authenticity of the collections. However, DJ Duvvada Jagannadham slipped into a controversy, with many on social media and some people in media blatantly confirming that the collections are ‘fake’.

Upon some digging, people started giving their reasoning behind calling DJ collections as fake. “Recently Rajamouli told that Magadheera 100 days centres are faked. So what’s no guarantee that DJ Duvvada Jagannadham collections are not fake?”, some said. But Rajamouli told about Magadheera centres, not collections, isn’t it? And Magadheera is Allu Arvind’s production but DJ is not his own production.

In an interview to a popular news channel, Rajamouli told that he got upset with producers boasting fake centres list for films like Simhadri and Magadheera. So, should we now say that Rajamouli’s revelation led to people believing that DJ collections are fake?

Some cine-observers commented this way- “If one small-time heroine is caught in prostitution, people say that whole of the film industry is like that. In reality, there is no truth is such assumption. Now that Rajamouli told Magdheera 100 days centres are faked, people are believing that DJ Collections are also faked. So who is to be blamed here? Rajamouli’s statement or People’s mindset??

Generally, when some of our stars leave to the USA for these Telugu people conventions, they interact with them a lot. One thing is that such interactions improvise bonding between people living distantly from the native place and other thing is that these stars could easily up their market by pampering NRIs.

Amidst huge publicity and hungama, finally, Allu Arjun went to USA to promote his latest movie “DJ Duvvada Jagannadham”. More than this, everyone looked forward to his interaction with NRIs at NATS 2017 event as he’s invited as a Guest there. But Bunny gave a complete shocker to them if we have to believe the reports coming up.

Recently when Venkatesh went to USA, he gave a lecture on spirituality and on living a simple life. That clicked well with NRI audiences. Then Ram Charan and Kalyan Ram also spent a good time at a couple of Telugu events and carved out a new image for them there. After giving some interesting lectures, these stars used to meet NRI families, kids and conduct Q&A session with fans and much more. That will help the stars develop their market further.

But at Chicago Convention Centre last night, where nearly 4000 audiences are in attendance, Allu Arjun has turned up at the event only for 20 mins and left. He spoke about DJ, DJ’s piracy and negative reviews, but nothing else. And that too, as he’s there only for 20 mins, almost all the Telugu audiences at the event felt shocked and a bit disappointed.

While some say, Allu Arjun is upset with negative reviews of DJ and that’s why he didn’t spend much time there. Few stated that he’s actually heading to some other business meeting along with Chiranjeevi and Allu Arvind who are touring the USA for a couple of weeks. Some buzz says that NATS organisers and Allu Arjun got into a tiff over some arrangements, and hence the quick exit.

Whatever it maybe, Bunny should have spent more time at the convention, rather quickly departing.

Akhil Akkineni, the young scion of Akkineni’s, doesn’t want to be called Nava Manmadhudu or Nava Samrat.”I am not too keen on these titles in front of names,” Akhil declares.

His father is called as ‘King’ and also referred as ‘Manmadhudu’.”I am aware of this but I feel shy or awkward if someone calls me with such tags. Let the superstars have such names. I am just an upcoming actor,” he further explains with honest approach.

Akhil surprised everyone by singing a song from his upcoming movie on stage of SIIMA at Abu Dhabi.”The song is from my new film that is directed by Vikram Kumar. It was (music director) Anup who persuaded me to perform on stage. We did rehearsals for about 30 hours,” he continued.

Akhil further revealed that the movie that is doing is an action romantic drama.”It is more of a love story than an action drama but the action episodes will be novel. International action choreographers shot them. But in Vikram Kumar’s movie you will find human emotions more. He is pulling things out of me that I didn’t know I had. I am very excited to working with him,” he said.