Stylish star Allu Arjun, who used to be called a ‘Director’s Hero’, has allegedly played a crucial part in his recent film ‘DJ’ turning out to be a soulless attempt. He has allegedly interfered a lot in director Hairsh Shankar’s work throughout the making of DJ.

During the promotional interviews, Harish claimed several times that Bunny had given valuable inputs for DJ. As per Harish, it was Bunny who asked for a lighter climax and his inputs changed the tone of several scenes in the film. He credited Bunny as the hero who can conceive maximum from his director.

Although it looked like Harish was praising Bunny, he has allegedly conveyed through the making videos shown at the end of the film how much Bunny interfered in err…added inputs to his work. In some frames, it appeared like Bunny took complete control and Harish was just limited to say ‘Action’ and ‘Cut’.

As Harish has got the dates of a star hero after a long time, he may have completely surrendered to Bunny and nodded his head to whatever he had demanded. On the other hand, the recent hit streak of Bunny may have infused so much confidence in him that he has started ‘improvising’ the work of his directors. And, the result is ‘DJ’, an emotionless, utter-routine and amateurishly looking film.

The makers of Superstar Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar’s upcoming science fiction film ‘2.0’ have kick-started the film’s promotions. And, they are going to surprise the world with their very first initiative.

Raju Mahalingam, the creative head of Lyca Productions, has revealed that a 100-foot-tall hot air balloon adorned with life-sized images of both Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar from “2.0” will float over the ‘Hollywood’ signage in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He added that they are not making an Indian film but a Hollywood movie, and this massive balloon effort is to attract the attention of Hollywood.

After Los Angeles, the balloon will fly over London, Dubai, San Francisco, South East Asian countries, Europe and Australia before coming to India. Makers of ‘2.0’ are planning to rope in film stars from across the country to participate in this first-of-its-kind ride.

Made on a budget of around Rs 400 crore, ‘2.0’ is slated for a world-wide release on January 25 next year. A 15-language release is being planned for this VFX extravaganza, which is currently in post-production stage.

The Task Force police on Friday, in a press meet, confirmed that the two persons who were arrested in the city on Thursday were trying to exchange the Rs 7 crore demonetized currency.

The police earlier arrested Puranam Purushotham (50) and Palati Srinivasa Rao (45), two film production managers red-handed with Rs 7 crore demonetized currency. Upon inquiry, it was unearthed that the money allegedly belonged to M. Koteshwar Raju, a Chennai-based film producer who has been making Telugu and Tamil films on his JyoStar Enterprises banner since 2016. Rajasekhar’s upcoming film ‘PSV Garuda Vega’ is his latest production venture.

Police said both Purushotham and Srinivasa Rao joined JyoStar Enterprises as production managers and have been operating from their Hyderabad office situated at Road no 71, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad.

A few days ago, Koteshwar Raju came to Hyderabad and handed over them the Rs 7 crore demonetized currency. He promised them 10% commission for exchanging the full sum. The duo then hid the currency in their office at Jubilee Hills and were searching for persons having connections to exchange the money.

Acting on a tip-off, the Central zone Task Force police nabbed the duo on Thursday. The exact source of money will only be ascertained when the absconding Koteshwar Raju is taken into custody. Manhunt is on for him.

Since one of the arrested production managers, Srinivas Rao happens to be a close aide of Jeevitha-Rajaskehar couple, the incident hogged full media attention.

Composers copying tunes from other languages that are unknown to the public is not a new thing. We have many times seen many talented music directors like Koti, Mani Sharma and Thaman lifting tunes of popular songs from other languages.

An interesting discussion is right now going on in Film Circles about one such stuff, but with music lovers confused as to who copied whom. Actually, a TV commercial of Samsung Galaxy J7 has created this confusion. The background score of this advertisement sounds exactly like the “Next Enti” song tune scored by Devi Sri Prasad for Nani’s Nenu Local movie.

With this, music lovers immediately started digging into the past, checking whether DSP has scored the song first or he lifted it from Samsung ad. While Next Enti song made into market way back in March this year, Samsung new TVC was released only a few days ago. That makes it look like Samsung has copied DSP for their product.

Or in all likelihood, maybe DSP himself has scored for this Samsung TVC as well if the product makers requested him to do so, to use that Next Enti song tune.

Until two years ago, Allu Arjun used to claim that no one can take the place of Megastar Chiranjeevi and if there is anyone capable, it is Charan. After tasting a series of hits and becoming a star on par with the top stars of Tollywood, Bunny’s thinking has allegedly changed.

When Bunny was recently asked in an interview about Mega fans calling him as the ‘Next Megastar’, he allegedly didn’t condemn it (well, he would surely have done it two years ago). Instead, Bunny displayed humility and said that he takes it as a compliment. He allegedly didn’t say Charan is the rightful successor to Megastar, as he used to say earlier.

With abundant talent and recent success, Bunny surely has evolved as a tough competitor to Charan, and some new generation Mega fans may consider him as a successor to Chiru but the devoted Mega fan base is still rooting for Charan, says a senior Mega fan. Bunny’s off-screen attitude is something that demonstrates why he can never take the place of Megastar, he further added.

Charan on the other hand is reinventing his image and also resurrecting his father’s filmy career. He is also winning hearts with his humble and helping gestures. He however needs to catch up with Bunny in terms of pan-India stardom.

It needs to be taken into account that when Allu Aravind announced ‘Ramayanam’, Mega fans unequivocally demanded Charan to play the lead and not Allu Arjun.

Despite a star like NTR Jr is on board as the Host, the organizers of ‘Bigg Boss Telugu’ are reportedly facing rejections when they approach potential contestants.

Suma, one of the most popular Television anchors, has reportedly turned down the offer to be a contestant on this show. Given her popularity on TV, she was offered a hefty sum but Suma still wasn’t interested. It is known that the show will be filmed in Mumbai and the contestants will have to stay there for a month or more. Being the busiest anchors on TV and a prominent face to host film related functions, Suma may not cater so many days for Bigg Boss.

Since the shooting of Bigg Boss is scheduled to commence towards July end, organizers are moving mountains to rope in contestants. Posani Krishnamurali has reportedly formally agreed to take part in the show. Discussions with celebrities like Tejaswi Madivada, Madhu Shalini, Navdeep etc. are being carried out.

Let’s wait to find out who is finally going to end up in Big Boss house from Telugu arena.

Allu Arjun’s latest release ‘Duvvada Jagannatham’ crossed the half million dollar mark in the US by Friday. The cumulative collections from Thursday premieres and Friday stands at a decent USD527K approx.

However, significant drop was observed in footfalls on second day itself. If the film shows signs of dropping any further, it will be difficult for the exhibitors to recover their money. DJ has to collect more than USD1.5 million to be called a safe venture.

Considering that the film has received below par reviews mostly, exhibitors hope DJ to put up a decent show at least in the first weekend and that they can attract audience in week days by slashing ticket price.

For a routine commercial entertainer, winning US audiences was always going to be challenging but buyers relied on the seemingly fresh ‘Brahmin’ avatar of Bunny. Unfortunately, the film still turned out to be a routine product.

Taking into account that Bunny’s last film ‘Sarrainodu’ ended up below $900K even after taking a decent start, it needs to be seen if DJ follows suit or Bunny’s upcoming US tour helps the film in reaching safe shore.

Actor Ravi Teja’s younger brother, Bharat reportedly died in a fatal road accident near Hyderabad last night. The accident took place at Kotwalguda of Shamshabad Mandal, 50 km away from Hyderabad.

A speeding car driven by Bharat on Outer Ring Road reportedly collided with a stationed lorry, and he breathed his last on the spot. His body has been shifted to Osmania Hospital for postmortem. Reports are coming out that he was in inebriated condition while driving the car. We however need to wait for an official announcement to ascertain his death and also to find out the cause of death.

The 46-year-old Bharat has acted in a good number of Telugu movies.

Veteran actress Sridevi has finally responded to the allegations of Rajamouli where he had revealed that he had to back out when Sridevi shocked him with unreasonable demands, when approached to essay the role of Sivagami.

During an earlier interview, Rajamouli revealed, “Sridevi asked for 8 crores. Apart from that, she wants five business class tickets whenever she has to fly to Hyderabad and fly back. And five business suites should be booked at the biggest hotel in Hyderabad for her entourage during their stay. She even wanted a share in Hindi version of the film”.

Now, as the actress is in Hyderabad to promote her upcoming film ‘Mom’, when Sridevi was reminded of Rajamouli’s revelations, she said, “no filmmaker has the right to reveal the remuneration of an artiste on a public platform. Not only ‘Baahubali’, I have rejected several hit films in the past few years for my own reasons. No maker of those films has ever spoken about my rejecting their film on a public platform.”

“Don’t I have the right to accept or reject a film?” she shot back.

Sridevi denied demanding Rs.8 crore remuneration and other luxurious facilities as said by Rajamouli. “I couldn’t have done 300 films if I was an actress who make unreasonable demands,” she stressed.

She opined that an accomplished technician like Rajamouli shouldn’t have talked about her remuneration in interviews.