After a sensational day one across the world, the happiness bubble for the fans and distributors of Power Star Pawan Kalyan’s Sardaar Gabbar Singh bursted quickly on its day two. Theaters across the Telugu states and even in overseas witnessed only 70-80% fulls, which raised deep concerns among the trade circles.

As if this disastrous is not enough, Sardaar is facing yet another major challenge in the form of Jungle Book. This Hollywood visual extravaganza has took the theaters across the country by storm and minted more than 9 crore share on its opening day, while Sardaar’s North Indian collections were a shameful 45 lakhs.

After opening to more than 90% to housefuls on day one, Jungle Book has witnessed a big jump on day 2 as the film collected more than 10 crores share across the country, while Sardaar failed to go houseful in almost all the multiplexes and single screens in Telugu states, leave alone the Northern circuit.

Jungle Book’s advance bookings at mullet multiplexes in Telugu states over the weekend are phenomenal with almost 95%-100% occupancy, while Sardaar is struggling to get even 50% fulls. Alas, nobody might have expected that even a small film like Jungle Book would beat Sardaar.

Gabbar Singh is one of the very special films in Pawan Kalyan’s career. The film directed by Harish Shankar provided much needed break for Pawan who was struggling to score a commercial hit for ages.

Major positives of the film were Pawan Kalyan’s characterization, Devi Sri Prasad’s music, Shruti Haasan’s glamour, lead pair romance, mother sentiment, dialogues, mass masala elements, Abhimanyu Singh villanism, Malaika Arora’s oomph factor in Kevvu Keka songs. Scenes like Kabaddi and Anthyakshari were big add-ons for the film.

When it comes to Sardaar Gabbar Singh, except for Pawan Kalyan’s performance, interval action sequence, there is nothing much to describe about the movie. The Bobby directorial neither has interesting story, nor has any entertaining elements for any sections.

Although first half was passable, second half was big letdown. Pawan’s chemistry with Kajal was one of the weakest points. Devi Sri Prasad’s music was not up to the mark. Moreover, we don’t understand when and how Pawan Kalyan behaves.

Sangeeth episode was promoted to be major highlight in Sardaar. However, Pawan disappoints with feeble writing. No single song in the episode enchants fans, except for Dayi Dayi Damma. Nonetheless, Pawan’s veena and other step in the song were no match to Chiranjeevi’s dance moves in Indra.

Those who have watched Sardaar say that, the film is nowhere near to Gabbar Singh in all aspects.

Director Krish is hailed as one of the most well knowledged and passionate filmmakers in Tollywood and his impressive body of work starting from his debut film Gamyam till the national award winning Kanche is a cinematic reflection of his perspective about the society around him and us.

On Ugadi, Krish’s new film, the most eagerly awaited 100th film of Nandamuri Balakrishna, was launched formally in Amaravati and his highly inspiring and informative speech during the event not only gave an insight about the valor of the great Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra but also showcased Krish’s vast knowledge about Telugu history and culture.

However, Krish’s speech has now kicked off an unwarranted curiosity among the caste fanatic Tollywood fans, who are now busy finding out his caste. In his speech, Krish also stated that he wouldn’t have made the film if not for Balayya and even chanted the mandatory Jai Balayya slogans.

Discussions have been rampant since NBK100 launch that Krish is a Brahmin, going by his love for Telugu tradition and literature, while a section of hardcore fans also say that he belongs to the Kamma community.

Whatever it may be, Krish, the man who made films like Vedam and Kanche criticising the caste system, has found himself stuck into the murky casteist mediocrity of Tollywood caste fanatics who just don’t seem to be taking a break from their casteism.

In his interview with Bollywood critic and film journalist Anupama Chopra, Power Star Pawan Kalyan dropped a bomb on his fans when he announced that he will quit movies after 2, 3 films. Fans obviously could not digest Pawan’s shock.

Then came Sardaar Gabbar Singh, which released yesterday to heavily mixed talk. More than 90 crores are at stake on Sardaar and distributors who invested insanely high amounts cannot afford a flop.

However, after a record setting day 1, Sardaar’s collections are witnessing a downward trend in several areas as the occupancies have come down to 40-50% and not many theaters are witnessing full houses even though today being a holiday. Trade pundits are speculating that Sardaar’s full run collections may end up as an average fare and that distributors will lose at least 30% of their investments.

If these early predictions end up becoming true, Pawan may have to do back to back films to bail out his distributors. Pawan will soon start SJ Surya’s movie and he may wrap up the film quickly and even commence another film by the end of this year.

Pawan will also think twice before attempting to write a script again, noticing the severe backlash he faced for his lackluster creativity in Sardaar. All in all, Pawan’s fans will still cheer up because Pawan will also rethink about his decision to quit movies.

It has been a trend for top heroes of Tollywood to evince interest in doing remakes of successful films of neighbouring States.

If any Bollywood film or for that matter, films of Tamil and Malayalam become super hit, big stars of our Telugu film industry quickly grab the opportunity to do the remakes of such films in Telugu.

Of late, even top heroes – from Megastar to Mega Power Star – are following this route because of the success formula of the remake film.

Ironically, even budding stars of Tollywood have started imitating the big stars in showing interest in remakes.

Young heroes like Raj Tarun, Sandeep Kishan and Sumanth Ashwin, who delivered big hits in Telugu film industry with their experimental and novel stories, are also following the remake trend.

Recently, Sandeep did the film “Run,” a remake of runaway Tamil hit film”Neram.” Similarly, the forthcoming film of Raj Tarun-Vishnu combination is also a remake of a Punjabi film.

Industry sources said the Telugu film – “Right Right” starring Sumanth Ashwin,is a remake of a Malayalam film. Likewise, producers of another Telugu film with Raj Tarun as solo hero, are learnt to have bought remake rights from another Malayalam film.

If big heroes as well as budding heroes run after the remakes of other regional films, where is the scope for the original talent? Is there a bankruptcy of story ideas in Tollywood?

Who will get the opportunity to showcase his talent, if all the heroes try to play safe with the remakes?

One gentleman in the media is said to have offered to gift a luxury car to Power star Pavan Kalyan. This gentleman, who runs a popular channel, reportedly provided finances to Sharat Marar, when the latter fell short of money while making Sardar Gabbar Singh, starring Pavan.

So, when this media baron offered a car to Pavan, the latter reportedly turned down the offer politely, saying he had enough number of cars and that he also now got money to build a new house, thanks to Sardar.

It was surprising as to why the channel owner had offered to gift a car to Pavan. Apparently, this gentleman has a lot of foresight over the future of Pavan.

May be Pavan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party might click in the next elections and may be, he will become the Chief Minister one day or other. So, it is always better to be in the good books of Pavan.

It is always prudent to invest on prospective leaders, instead of wasting money and who knows, such leaders would emerge as powerful leaders and they would be useful someday. What a wishful thinking!