When two terrific film makers SS Rajamouli and Krish sit together for a little tete a tete, the only contemporary subject fits for discussion can be Gautamiputra Satakarni.

While media popularized this meeting as Rajamouli’s interview with Krish, we better call it as Rajamouli and Krish’s inner view on GPS. Thus the dialogue begins.

RM: I have a confession to make before Krish. Though I admire him as director for his sensibilities shown in past films, I considered his association with Balakrishna as bad combination because Balakrishna is a mass hero while Krish is master at delicate emotions. But, he proved all of us wrong delivering a blockbuster and biggest hit in Balayya’s 100 film career droving the film close to $2M in USA.

As an academician, I do not have minimum knowledge on Gautamiputra Satakarni or Satavahana kingdom. With very little information available about this king in the form of Nasik inscription, what made you passionately desperate to make this film?

Krish: Yes, the information about Gautamiputra Satakarni is scant. But, about Satavahanas there is vast data accessible in Megasthenes Indica, Vishwanatha Satyanarayana Andhra Prashasthi, Veligonda Srinivas historical fiction novel Sravani, historian Krishna Shastri’s research pages, Maharashtra Gazette, Kannehashila in Tamil Nadu, Acharya Nagarajuna’s Suhrullekha or the recent excavations at Kondapalli, Kotilingala, Peddabankur revealing about Satakarni greatness.

I wrote down my preliminary points or notes needed for script and dramatized it with fiction giving a cinematic treatment. Every filmmaker adopts the very same procedure.

Yes, there are possible contradictions to arise when more books or more research material is read. But, I took only few testimonies which strongly stimulated me to believe that Gautamiputra Satakarni is our Telugu pride. He performed Rajasuya Yagam, started the custom of prefixing mother’s name. What more does a filmmaker need to portray the greatness of a Telugu king?

I gave my best attempt incorporating the Satavahana administration or people living style into the script which may not be enough material for others.

RM: You aren’t doing a documentary. This is purely a cinema and you have to narrate story with drama and commerciality. You endorsed a right choice but how was it possible to wrap such a mammoth project in 79 days?

Krish: (laughs loudly) First you tell me why Kattappa killed Baahubali and I will reciprocate you how I made GPS in 79 days. (Jokes apart) Our budget, time period and planning did not allot more than 79 days. Our day work used to start at 6 or 7am and used to end at 10 or 11pm. Sometimes, we struck to schedule performing duties for 15 to 16 hours.

Best suggestion which worked in our favor is given by you (Rajamouli). I remembered your recommendation to cut down the graphics time to possible minimum and make the maximum best use of live action.

So, I divided my project into four parts. First in Morocco is the war with Nahapana. Second is the naval war shot in a setting erected in Hyderabad, third is Georgia’s fort battle and the last is India’s portion in RFC, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Underlying the three battles, there are strong emotions which audience liked today.

One year back, I worked with the same team, wrapped Kanche in 54 days. Then I realized that 25 days more can make my dream of Satakarni true because I am fascinated with GPS idea from 2011. Real happiness lies in that when your plan works our wonderfully. I felt that real happiness after completing GPS because it’s a collective team effort.

RM: Who was your principal designer of the whole project?

Krish: I worked as a CEO for this team.  I feel I am good at organizing the teams. So, lion share of success credits in GPS should go to my cameraman Gnanasekhar, writer Burra Sai Madhav, art director Bupesh R Bhupathi, colorist Nilesh and VFX coordinator Rajiv Rajashekharan.

Gnanasekhar’s impeccable imaginary vision helped in easing the shooting process. His lighting patterns gave the depth and periodic look. We haven’t kept any filters in generating the historic flavor. Our colorist Nilesh and Gnanasekhar have got excellent chemistry.

Burra Sai Madhav’s writing language bought inherent grandeur to the film. A glance at scene paper or reading dialogues in it used to excite the team pushing us to capture the essence urgently and energetically.

Bupesh R Bhupathi’s art work in manufacturing warfare weapons, shields and other properties helped great deal.

RM: As a filmmaker, I try to forcibly join my story with engaging screenplay because I feel that story and screenplay are two poles apart. For me story means writing of scenes based on emotions but screenplay is the narration graph which engages audience dis-respective with story. Vastly experienced distributors suggest us to heighten the emotions at regular intervals because they are unworried with your story and its flavor. It is a director’s responsibility to coagulate their needs and public demands.

I found a perfect graph in GPS where story and screenplay mutually went hand in hand. Best example is the second war episode when queen mother Vasishti Devi sends his little son to war field. A director’s major success can be appreciated in such scenes. Aren’t you really petrified with three war episodes?

Krish: For me, there’s no way left to escape from these wars because I wrote these wars on a strong emotional footing. First war comes when Buddhists complain Rajamatha about their son (Marana Homam) and it is a naval battle. Second war in fort backdrop comes with child and wife sentiment. Third war is an open battle with a different setup where a group of armies fight together united in spite of their missing leader. For me wars lied in the background because there is a strong emotion formulated in the foreground.

Any hero other than Balakrishna as warrior emperor, I might have worried with wars. Thankfully, a scintillate Balayya made my job simple. He gave a settled performance highlighting the sentiment of a son, husband and anger of a warrior emperor. The way he changes body language depending on scene drives you go crazy.

Real secret behind GPS shot in 79 days is, I got three amazing artists in Balakrishna, Shriya and Hema Malini. Their synchronization with each other made GPS a great experience for me as director. Great writing and impeccable acting by three big artists without egos finally made the GPS.

RM: Your brilliant team work is re-sounding today in theaters. We also heard about Balakrishna’s accident?

Krish: It was in Morocco when a bomb blasting went wrong and horse Balayya garu was driving went out of control, he fell on ground. But, this man is a true professional. In one hour, he came back to shooting spot and we went forward. From the first day of shooting, Balakrishna garu behaved like a Satakarni and lived into the character. At this age, his dedication and sincerity amazes you and inspires everyone to work more. He is an energy booster for whole team.

RM: Final word, sir you made a film all the Telugu audience will feel proud of. Congratulations and we wait for your Vasishtiputra Pulamavi.

Krish: For now, my alacrity with historical genre is fulfilled with GPS. I will take a break with other stories. Whenever I feel it’s a right time to comeback I will surely try one more historical.

Krish and Rajamouli sign off.

As each day passes, megastar Chiranjeevi’s comeback film Khaidi No.150 is creating a new record. The film has now gone past the Rs 60 Cr share mark in the Telugu states and became the only 4th film after ‘Baahubali’, ‘Srimanthudu’ and ‘Janatha Garage’ to do so.

Below is the break-up of 9 days Share of Khaidi No.150

Nizam – 14.85cr
Ceded – 11.72cr
Nellore – 2.68cr
Guntur – 5.91cr
Krishna – 4.51cr
West – 5.19cr
East – 6.80cr
Uttharandhra – 9.45cr

Total in AP & TG share – Rs 61.11 Cr

The steady run even in the week days is helping the film to scale new heights at box office. By the end of its second weekend, the film is expected to dethrone Mahesh Babu’s Srimanthudu to become the non-Baaahubali industry hit.

Khaidi No.150 has raked in close to $2.3M in the US taking its worldwide share to around Rs 82 Cr.

When T Subbarami Reddy felicitated mega couple Chiranjeevi and Surekha for the super success of Khaidi No.150, family friends and industry friends of Chiru were all present and took part of the big celebration marking grand comeback of Chiru.

However, Pawan who had recently met Chiru in his house for dinner, chose to skip Reddy’s felicitation to his mega brother.

Now the latest update in the industry circuit is that Dasari Narayana Rao is planning to host another such huge event in a day or two to celebrate the grand success of Khaidi. As Dasari was the chief guest for Khaidi pre-release function, he is so happy to see the film crossing record 100 Crore gross in just 7 days.

Dasari immediately felt to organise a grand do where he is expected to felicitate Chiru and Surekha. Now insiders say that Dasari wants Pawan to join the event. He is apparently trying very hard to bring Pawan for this mega event.

Pawan and Dasari share good bond. In fact, both have admitted to work together. Dasari announced to produce a film with Pawan Kalyan as well. Though not materialised yet, they still are in good terms.

Will Pawan attend Dasari’s party? Can Dasari bring Pawan? This is now the hot topic being discussed in the Tollywood circuit.

Filmmaker Krish went nostalgic stepping on American soil after a decade. He studied masters and worked as temporary foreign employee in past before returning to India fulfilling his passion for films.

Currently, Krish is touring USA on Gautamiputra Satakarni success celebrations along with Balakrishna and Shriya.

Greeting the friends and fellows in States, Krish tweeted… “It’s been more than a decade for the nostalgic student days. Adios America! Here I am.” Spanish noun Adios means good bye. Generally, a warm friendly welcoming greeting is implied with Hi or Hola in Spanish. Instead, Krish began with a good bye.

“I said Adios willingly because 10 years back when I was leaving to India at the price of sacrificing my career here, I couldn’t bid a proper good bye to America. My friend Rajiv Reddy and I would have returned to the US if we failed in our cinema innings. Now that I got a proper career for me in India, I conveyed a bona fide Adios at the port of entry,” director Krish said.

The release of Venkatesh starrer Guru has been postponed to summer. Hero Venkatesh was not happy with the final output and accordingly suggested some changes.

Those scenes have been reshot and the Daggubati hero is now said to be satisfied. Apparently, those scenes were not in sync with the original verion of the movie.

Guru is a remake of the Madhavan starrer Saala Khaddos and deals with the relationship between an honest, yet frustrated boxing coach and a promising young protege.

Ritkia Singh who played the female lead in the Hindi and Tamil versions has been retained for the Telugu version too. Santosh Narayanan has been roped in as music director for the film. Sudha Kongara Prasad is the director for the Telugu version too.

Glam diva Kajal Aggarwal, who scored a huge hit, Khaidi No.150 at a time when her career was on the brink, has recently shared interesting details about her sleepless nights with her fans.

During a recent chat session with her fans on social media, when asked about her favorite genre, Kajal said that she loves romantic comedies. The ‘Pakka Local’ also said that horror genre is her second favorite but that she finds tough to sleep after watching horror films.

Well, her ardent fans wonder why the hot lady doesn’t find a life partner instead of having tough time sleeping alone. She has been bombarded with this question in many interviews and the ever charming lady always puts a nice end to the query saying that she would settle down when she finds her perfect man.

It is known that Kajal’s younger sister Nisha Aggarwal has already married as she couldn’t find much success in film industry.

Balakrishna’s Gautamiputra Stakarni has finally landed the senior hero into the much coveted Rs 50 Cr share club. GPSK amassed a worldwide share of Rs 50.21 Cr in just 8 days.

Here is the area wise break-up of Distributor Share:

Nizam – 9.15 Cr
Ceded – 7.59 Cr
Nellore – 1.65 Cr
Guntur – 3.76 Cr
Krishna – 2.62 Cr
West – 3.11 Cr
East – 3.18 Cr
Uttarandhra – 4.75

AP & TG Total – Rs 35.81 Cr

Karnataka 4.20
Rest of India 1.20
Domestic Total – Rs 41.21 Cr
Overseas – 9.00

8 Days Worldwide Share – Rs 50.21 Cr

This is the highest collection for any historical Telugu movie. Distributors have started counting profits and they hope that the film will reach around Rs 60 to 70 Cr by the end of its full run.

Telangana Chief Minister KCR has been planning to watch historic epic Gautamiputra Satakarni from sometime. This he had expressed with Nandamuri Balakrishna as well when he had come to meet KCR.

However, due to his busy schedule, KCR couldn’t watch the film. In fact, the GPSK team has contacted CMO of Telangana twice to held the special screening, but as CM was busy, it didn’t happen.

Finally, KCR made himself free and ready to watch the film. A few officials from CMO have contacted the Satakarni team to arrange the special show. As Balakrishna and director Krish are in US, the same has been conveyed by the team to CMO.

Surprisingly, KCR said he’d watch Satakarni another time and said he’ll only watch it in the presence of Balakrishna and Krish.

As soon as Balayya and Krish return from US, GPSK special screening is likely to be held for KCR.

The storm of megastar Chiranjeevi’s Khaidi No.150 is so high that almost all the film celebs across the South and politicians as well are watching the film to see megastar’s charisma which is attracting audiences to theatres in big number.

Gulte has exclusive information that ESL Narasimhan, the First Citizen and the joint Governor of the Telugu states and his wife will catch the special premiere of Khaidi No.150 this evening. Gov. has shown keenness to watch the film after hearing positive reports about megastar’s performance.

This is a big achievement for the team of Khaidi No.150 as a person occupying the seat of the Governor rarely shows interest to watch films. It will also help the film garner free publicity.

In the recent times, we haven’t seen any big producer coming out and announcing the collections of a film officially. But star producer and ace distributor Allu Arvind is taking a different path for Megastar Chiru’s Khaidi No. 150, which is giving raise to many doubts.

Forget about why Arvind is sharing the details of film’s collections in the first place, but now that he is officially claiming 100+ crores before media, he can’t go back on what he said when Income Tax officials quiz him about the same. As they are openly announcing through paper ads that the film has grossed 106 crores and else, it could be understood that all the accounts are super perfect, and everything is white money. But that could spin a trouble for the crew of the film.

Needless to say, from Vinayak to Ratnavelu, Kajal to Devi Sri Prasad, the pay packet is more than a crore in everyone’s case. By any chance if IT sleuths want to check and verify the accounts of Khaidi No. 150 surely they are going to scan the payments given to this costly cast and crew as well. If Arvind continues to flaunt their white money through paper ads then the crew would be at the receiving end, aren’t they? Once IT department starts checking the payments, they will sure end up digging out total accounts of those celebs including their other film deals and investments.

At the same time, many other big producers are feeling that Khaidi No. 150 makers should not flaunt their collection registers this way. Tomorrow if for any other big film, collections are not shared, then that will trigger unnecessary feuds between fans in this era of social media mud slinging.

After Mahesh Babu raised his voice in support of ‘Jallikattu’ movement in Tamil Nadu, calling the sport the spirit of Tamil people, Jana Sena founder Pawan Kalyan has also joined the chorus of ‘Jallikattu’. Unlike other celebs, Pawan has provided a detailed presentation of his point of view on the Supreme Court ban on Jallikattu and questioned why the same animal cruelty laws are not being levied on Indian beef and poultry businesses.

Besides, Jallikattu, Pawan also highlighted the issue of ‘Kodipandem’ (Cock Fighting) ban in the Telugu states and termed the ban an attack on the culture and traditions of south people.

“BAN on ‘Jallikattu’ & ‘Kodipandem’ by Govt of India is an Attack on Dravida Culture and its integrity. This is how it is being viewed in Dakshin Hindustan. I had observed this ‘deep hurt’ in people of ‘Dakshin Bharat’ while I was shooting in Pollachi (Tamil Nadu) and during my political interactions in Andhra about the Ban of their respective cultural events in recent times,” Pawan tweeted.

He also put up the statistical data of Indian beef and poultry business and questioned the Supreme Court on why the slaughtering of animals doesn’t come under ‘Animal Cruelty’ when traditional ‘animal’ sports are banned by labeling them as ‘Animal Cruelty’.

“Govt of India, cited ‘Animal Cruelty’ as the reason for the ban of ‘Jallikattu and Kodipandem’ If we truly consider this puritanical approach then, we have to examine the statistics of Indian Beef export & Indian Poultry industry.

Imagine how many Cows, Calves and Buffaloes should be slaughtered to get 2.4 million tonnes of Beef. How come this kind of slaughtering does not attract Animal Cruelty? just because we don’t see it !! Why the Animal cruelty act applied only to Jallikattu, where the animals getting injured or killed is insignificant when compared to the amount of animals that had to be slaughtered for business,” tweeted the Jana Sena Chief.

Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu’s latest tweets supporting Jallikattu fight has set the tongues wagging in T-town. As Mahesh usually stays away from such controversies, many in the industry have expressed shock over the actor’s remarks even when a ban on the issue is being imposed by the Supreme Court.

This is not all. A few even started linking Mahesh tweets with his upcoming Telugu-Tamil bilingual. It’s said that this was part of Mahesh to please Tamils and thus garner more mileage for his next film with AR Murugadoss. Social media is abuzz with such trolls.

The talk has it that Mahesh’s films haven’t done well in Tamil in the past. In fact, the actor’s biggest hit in Telugu, Srimanthudu, too failed to do wonders in Tamil even though it was dubbed and released there.

So, all these said to have led to the speculations that Mahesh could be doing this to appease Tamil youths, students and thus want to expand his base there as well.

It’s buzzed that Namrata who is best in chalking out strategies could be mastermind behind this as well. Well, only Mahesh knows whether there’s any truth in such claims are not.

Whatever maybe the incident that happens in the world, how to use it for our own publicity? At least for the publicity of our film that is coming up soon? Ask Shahrukh Khan, he knows it better.

Bollywood’s superstar King Khan is known for his ads always, as he’s rated the best in selling anything from face wash to soaps, paints to cars and kitchenware as well.

Other day when both Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni stunned England at Cuttack with their blitzkrieg innings, Khan has tweeted, “So good to see Yuvraj & Dhoni play as they r doing. Really Sheron ka zamaana hota hai”.

The same tweet and dialogue are mentioned by both Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar on LIVE, as they are the commentators for this ongoing match. But what’s this “Sheron Ka Zamana?”

In fact Shahrukh has used this situation for the publicity of this upcoming film, Jan 25th release, “Raees”. The actual dialogue in the film goes by the line, “Din aur raat logon ke hote hai. Sheron Ka Zamaana hota hai”.

Using the same dialogue, our star hero has praised Yuvi and Dhoni’s knock, thereby hitting two birds with single shot. Does anyone need any proofs to say that Shahrukh Khan is the master of promotions and idea box of publicity?