With a series of box-office duds over the past few years, Young Tiger NTR lost his glory. Tarak’s fans have been wondering if he will ever bounce back to his previous form. Even on the personal front, NTR has been maintaining distance from the Nandamuri family and even from the TDP party.

There were also rumors that NTR has been facing heat from his close quarters as he is taking on his own babai this Sankranthi. Theaters shortage, uncertainty over Nannaku Prematho’s release, delay in censor process etc are some of the challenges NTR has been facing over the past few weeks.

However, those days of negativity surrounding NTR are finally gone and a sense of sympathy has been building up on NTR. Of late, NTR has been perceived as a real fighter who is struggling all the odds in his personal and professional lives.

And the reason behind this is none other than Tarak’s hard work for Nannaku Prematho. With a burning passion to score a hit, NTR totally reinvented himself with the film and underwent an image makeover. His hard work paid off and Nannaku Prematho has gained a huge craze like no other NTR film did.

Nannaku Prematho will undergo censor test on Monday and the worldwide release will be on the 13th. If the film turns out to be a hit, no doubt that NTR will be an unbeatable star to reckon with.

Panaji: Pop singer Remo Fernandes was today, arrested by Goa Police and later released on a bail bond when he appeared before investigating officer in connection with a case of alleged verbal abuse of a minor girl. The 62-year-old singer was earlier booked for allegedly verbally abusing the 17-year-old girl at Goa Medical College and Hospital where she was being treated after getting hit by a car allegedly driven by his son Johan on December 2, last year.

“Remo appeared before the police today and he was placed under arrest. As a part of the bail order, he was released on the bail bond of Rs 50,000,” said police inspector Jivba Dalvi, who is probing the case filed against the singer under Goa Children’s Act, 2003. Goa Children’s Court had yesterday granted anticipatory bail Remo on a personal bond of Rs 50,000. He was asked to appear before the investigating officer in the case for ten days from today, between 10 AM and 1 PM. The court also asked the singer to surrender his passport and deposit it with the investigating officer, till the charge sheet is filed in the case.

While granting anticipatory bail to Remo, the court observed that there is no possibility of the singer tampering with the evidence. “The apprehension that the applicant is likely to tamper with the evidence is misplaced and if there is such attempt, it would be a good case for cancellation of bail,” Judge Vandana Tendulkar had said in her 18-page bail order.

After the court order, Remo had issued a statement saying, “I have full faith in the judiciary, and I know that the truth will surface soon, as it usually does.” Social activist Aires Rodrigues had filed the complaint against Remo. Last month, the singer had sought anticipatory bail from Goa Children’s Court in connection with the case. In the bail plea, Remo claimed that he is innocent and is being falsely implicated in the case.

Mumbai: With Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan fortifying their friendship on Bigg Boss Double Trouble, expecting the unexpected has become quite the norm on the show. With the grand finale of the show being just a week away, yet another grand surprise comes your way on Bigg Boss with Amitabh Bachchan making an appearance on the show. Big B, the ex-Bigg Boss host, will be seen promoting his upcoming movie ‘Wazir’ on the show. This exciting episode will be aired on January 9.

Awaiting a grand welcome back, Big B will have quite a few surprises lined up for him on the show. Amitabh Bachchan will not only be seen having a good time with Salman Khan, but will also interact with the housemates. The two superstars will be seen discussing the show and the journey of the contestants so far and it certainly looks like Salman Khan is going to have fun seeing the housemates interacting with Big B. Making the housemates’ day for them by just his mere presence on the show, Amitabh Bachchan will also analyze the contestants’ razor sharp strategies.

With yet another megastar making an appearance on the show, ‘Bigg Boss’, as an entity has been blessed with a varied range of Bollywood personalities. We bet that this episode is going to be yet another much anticipated one.

Mumbai: Director-choreographer Remo D’souza’s next venture “A Flying Jatt” starring Tiger Shroff will hit the theatres on August 25. Starring “Heropanti” actor Tiger Shroff in the lead role the superhero film also features “Mad Max: Fury Road” star Nathan Jones, as super-villain.

Remo shared the release date of the film on Twitter. He shared a picture and wrote, “Yayy 25th,Aug,2016#aflyingjatt”Produced by Ekta Kapoor, “A Flying Jatt”, also stars Jacqueline Fernandez. The first poster of the film was released last year in October and received mixed response. Meanwhile, Tiger is busy getting his moves right. Check this out.

Hero Ram’s dry spell ended with ‘Nenu Sailaja’ which managed to collect around Rs 15 crore Worldwide in the first week. Prior to the release, even this energetic hero wasn’t sure about the success of the movie. In one of the interviews, He commented: ‘I’m picking routine commercial films as they fetch good revenues, whereas experimental or off-beat films don’t receive such a patronage’.

Success of ‘Nenu Sailaja’ will surely change Ram’s wrong perception and makes him realize audience were always willing to embrace good content. No other film of Ram collected Rs 15 crore in just 7 days and its still running successfully in all the centers. Housefulls were recorded in 90% of the screens throughout first week and ‘Nenu Sailaja’ entered Second Week with 450-plus screens.

In Overseas, ‘Nenu Sailaja’ has done terrific business and the total stood at $600K so far. For the second week, It is being screened in 64 locations to hold on to the No.1 Position until Sankranti releases hit the screens. On a whole, ‘Nenu Sailaja’ saved Ram’s troubled career to a great extent.

Mumbai: cIndo-Canadian adult film star Sunny Leone, who will soon be seen in sex comedy film “Mastizaade”, says the film director made her feel so comfortable that she never felt “wrong” shooting for the movie. “Every actor and actress have their own dos and don’ts and in this film (‘Mastizaade’), there were lots of don’t but me and Milap Zaveri (the director of the film) sat together and decided what we can do. He made me so comfortable.

“I feel whatever we shot for ‘Mastizaade’ is not wrong and I am not worried about people’s reaction towards me,” she added. Co-produced by Pritish Nandy and Rangita Pritish Nandy, “Mastizaade” will release on January 29. The film also features Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das, among others.

Sunny feels that people have different perceptions about her but she never took it seriously. “If people think I can do anything onscreen then that’s a natural thing for them to think. I can’t do anything about that. As an actor when you start putting limitations, you don’t have an open mind to explore.”

The week starting from January 13 is all set to become one of Tollywood’s biggest, this year. A total of four films, starring major names, will release back-to-back and filmmakers are trying to create hype claiming films will generate huge collections at the BO.

That, however, will not be possible this Sankranti. A major reason behind this “collection control” is the fact that all four films releasing during the three days have had to split these theatres between them. There are nearly 1,700 screens in both the Telugu-speaking states. Generally, a big-banner film releases in over 1,000 screens but this time around, only Jr NTR film has that advantage as his, Nannaki Prematho, is coming out first on January 13.

“So, he is going to occupy as many as screens on the first day but will be forced to reduce to half of them from the second day onwards,” says a source. The industry has even put in place a group to implement theatre control but the pressure from producers has been so immense, the committee itself is now defunct. Sources claim a few top producers chose to completely ignore the committee’s recommendations and preferred releasing on their own.

“We are trying to control screenings and give everyone equal opportunity. Jr NTR’s film is releasing in nearly 350 screens in the Nizam area on the first day and it will be reduced to 200 to 250 from the second day. Dictator, too, may get around 200 followed by Nagarjuna’s film which will receive around 110 screens. And then Sharwanand will get a margin of 40 to 50 screens in Nizam,” added the source.

Actress Katrina Kaif, who is reportedly dating Ranbir Kapoor, says she believes in loving passionately and calls herself a “die-hard romantic” person. The actress hopes her next film “Fitoor” puts out this message. “Yes, I’m a die-hard romantic person. I hope it comes out from the film. May be that’s the intention,” Katrina said here.

“Fitoor”, which means passion or obsession, is the story of a budding artiste Noor (Aditya Roy Kapoor) who falls in love with Firdaus (Katrina). And the trailer paints a whimsical picture with snow and a scenic backdrop. It also hints at the politics surrounding Kashmir. The film also stars Tabu, who is seen as Katrina’s mother in the film.

Talking about her character, Katrina said: “I think it really helps if you believe in love that way. And that’s the way I see love. I think love is life, love is passion and inherently I believe that. So for me, I think without that belief and conviction, of course it’s hard to portray a character passionately.”

Poonam Pandey sent her fans on the virtual world into a tizzy with “Jingle b**bs”, her racy twist to Christmas carol “Jingle bells”. She says she sometimes find her videos stupid, but is glad her fans love them. The actress, who has oft grabbed headlines for her bold nature, enjoys a wide fan following of 726,000 on Twitter, and the video has registered over one million views on YouTube.

“All my videos are getting good hits. It feels good that you upload a 47-second video which is so stupid and I’ll myself term it stupid, but people love it. Though I’m stupid, but people still love me,” she said. Poonam, who made her debut down south with the action romance “Malini & Co” last year, didn’t expect the response to “Jingle b**bs”.

She said: “I never expected that I’ll receive such a great response. I thought it was a stupid video, it was silly. It was only done in a funny manner because I know what I’m doing. I didn’t expect it to go viral.” Meanwhile, Poonam has also signed two “huge” projects, but she can’t reveal much about them at the moment. She also has the film “Helen” in her kitty.

Even as Nandamuri Balakrishna’s “Dictator” is gearing up for grand release on 14th January, speculations are rife that the movie’s story is lifted from a Hollywood movie. According to industry gossips, the movie has resemblance to the story of Denzel Washington’s “The Equalizer”.

In the Hollywood movie, Denzel Washington has played the role of an amiable home depot worker with a mysterious past. In Dictator, Balakrishna plays a simple guy working in a supermarket but he also has a mysterious past. Even in the recently released trailer of Dictator, it is shown that villains are talking about a professional guy who must be behind the killings as they don’t seem to be a war between two mafia factions. There is a similar scene in “The Equalizer”.

How much truth lies in these gossip can only be revealed after the release. Since it has three heroines unlike the Hollywood movie and lot of comedians (as per trailer), let’s hope that the movie has nothing to do with “The Equalizer”. Dictator is written and directed by Sri Wass with screenplay by Kona Venkat and Gopi Mohan.

Superstar Mahesh Babu, who rang in the New Year in Switzerland with his family, is back from a holiday. He’s all set to resume shooting for Telugu family drama “Brahmotsavam” from next week.

“Had a quick break in Dubai and the Swiss Alps. Kids loved it! Now it’s back to work (sic),” Mahesh posted on Twitter page on Friday. Mahesh, who left on a holiday in the third week of December, spent two weeks in Switzerland with his wife Namrata Shirodkar and two kids, Gautam and Sitara.

Throughout the course of the trip Namrata was posting pictures on her official Facebook page. Mahesh will join the fresh schedule of “Brahmotsavam” next week.

Superstar Mahesh Babu is going to work with a non-Telugu director after a long time for a new film that will start rolling after the actor wrapping up his ongoing project Brahmotsavam which will grace the theaters in May. The new flick set in the backdrop of Mumbai and to be directed by AR Murugadoss is said to be an action thriller to be made on a budget of 100 crore.

From past few days, there have been reports that, Murugadoss is making the film with same script which was previously rejected by Tamil actor Ajith. Condemning the reports, Murugadoss has clarified that, it is a fresh script. ‘Rumours !!! Mahesh babu’s film is a fresh script,’ concluded Murugadoss.

Fact is Murugadoss who made his directorial debut with Ajith starred Dheena had tried to make another movie with the mass hero, although his efforts turned futile. Murugadoss narrated a script to Ajith, but the Aarambham star had rejected it since he wasn’t too contented with it.

As informed by Murugadoss, he has prepared new script, but not the one that was rejected by Ajith. Apparently, Mahesh Babu has signed the film with Murugadoss, since he opines this movie is going to take his trade value to next level.

Mahesh Babu’s last outing Srimanthudu grossed over 100 crores. What the Mahesh and Murugadoss duo is targeting with the project which marks their first collaboration?

Superstar Mahesh Babu, who rang in the New Year in Switzerland with his family, is back from a holiday. He’s all set to resume shooting for Telugu family drama “Brahmotsavam” from next week.

“Had a quick break in Dubai and the Swiss Alps. Kids loved it! Now it’s back to work (sic),” Mahesh posted on Twitter page on Friday. Mahesh, who left on a holiday in the third week of December, spent two weeks in Switzerland with his wife Namrata Shirodkar and two kids, Gautam and Sitara.

Throughout the course of the trip Namrata was posting pictures on her official Facebook page. Mahesh will join the fresh schedule of “Brahmotsavam” next week.

Is the Sankranthi film war getting political? Is ‘Alludu’ entering into the Sankranthi film battle for his ‘Mamagaru’? Is operation ‘Mamaku Prematho’ on to fail ‘Nannaku Prematho?’ Is the Babai-Abbai war turning into a bitter fight for political upmanship? Sources now say that Nara Lokesh has entered the Sankranthi film war between Nannaku Prematho and Balayya’s Dictator.

Lokesh is allegedly talking to the exhibitors and distributors and is asking them not to get deeply involved in the film. Allegations are afloat online and NTR camp is blaming Lokesh. They claim that Lokesh is asking the exhibitors and distributors to ensure that Nannaku Prematho fails. Interestingly, some people threatened NTR’s friends and directors not to attend the Nannaku Prematho audio release.

Sources say that if Nannaku Prematho becomes a hit, then NTR could grow as a political rival to Lokesh. Hence, Balayya’s group is accused of trying to ensure that the film fails in both Andhra and Ceded areas, where TDP is in power. But, they are not very worried about Telangana, where the TDP has little stakes. This is a clear indication, according to NTR fans that political forces are trying to ensure that Jr NTR’s film fails.