Chennai: Ever wondered what the formative years of characters Baahubali and Bhallala Deva were like or who were their best friends? Filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli promises answers to many such questions as one of India’s biggest motion pictures, “Baahubali”, is set to be released as graphic novels, games and animated series. Arka Mediaworks, the makers of the film and character entertainment company Graphic India, have teamed up to take the story beyond the movie. “From the minute I started working on this story, I knew the world of ‘Baahubali’ can’t be encompassed into a film or two, simply because there’s so much more to tell, so many backstories to share. What we managed to showcase in the film was just a chip of the iceberg,” Rajamouli told IANS in an exclusive interview.

The story of “Baahubali” can run into thousands of pages, according to the director. “Take the story of the character Baahubali for instance. We have everything that happened in his life, every minute detail from birth to death. In the film, however, what you see is just a few fleeting shots from the time he was a toddler to when he was a 27-year-old,” he said. Using the transmedium (technique of telling a story across multiple platforms with the help of digital technology), he wants to take the remaining story of “Baahubali” to larger audiences with the expertise of Graphic India. “Film medium has limited space and we couldn’t use that to share everything we wanted to. There’s a lot of intrigue, action and adventure in the life of all the characters of the film, which we could include when we release the story as a comic, animated series or a game,” he added.

Rajamouli believes “Baahubali” will create the market for comics in the country which is very less in percentage vis-a-vis the west. “The global character entertainment industry is worth over $100 billion and countries like Korea, Japan and the US are flourishing in this business. Yet we the country with the largest human population, constitute only the smallest piece of this pie,” Rajamouli rued. “Instead of looking at India as not being a big comic market, let’s try and understand why there’s no market, and it’s because there are no good comics that can match international standards. A market of over 1 billion people is open for us and waiting to be tapped. Isn’t that a good sign,” he asked.

How will the comics appeal to the masses, Rajamouli’s core audience? “The general perception is that the front benchers and uneducated audiences in a theatre constitute the masses, while those seated in the balcony and pay more for a ticket form the elite class. This is just a misconception because take it from me, the guy who spends for a reclining seat ticket may enjoy commercial films as much as anybody or even more,” he said. “If ‘Baahubali’ appealed to the masses, across all types of people and demographics, I don’t see why people won’t like to know more about the world of Baahubali through a different medium, provided they are offered a world-class product. I’m sure they will buy it,” he added.

The first comic experience, Rajamouli assures, can be expected in June or July, followed by the animated series closer to the release of the film’s second part.

Rana Daggubati has become pan-Indian actor after the Baahubali storm across the country. Post release of the Rajamouli directorial, Rana signed more than half a dozen films in various languages; such is the current craze of Rana.

Nonetheless, the makers of Bangalore Naatkal are not anyway utilizing Rana’s fame. The film’s original Tamil version is hitting the screens today, but the Telugu version outing has been delayed for no reason.

Presence of Rana would surely give straight Telugu film feel, moreover except for few almost all the other leading cast such as Arya, Sri Divya, Raai Laxmi, Samantha and Prakash Raj are well-known actors for Telugus. Even, director Bhaskar is popular here for his films Bommarillu, Parugu, Orange etc.

It is good if Bangalore Naatkal receives positive response among Tamil spectators and critics, if not chances will be low for Telugu release and buzz will be low if it releases here.

As we all know, Bangalore Naatkal is official remake of Malayalam hit Bangalore Days. Proposal was there of making Telugu, Tamil bilingual simultaneously, but they dropped making Telugu version owing to some reasons best known to them.

There have been reports since morning that, actress Nayanthara has been caught by Malaysian police officials on Thursday night for passport mismatch.

According to these reports, Nayanthara’s screen name was printed on the passport, rather than her original name- Diana Mariam Kurien. So, enquiry is going on in the airport for further clarification.

However, other reports claim that, Nayan wasn’t detained, but struck in the passport as her work order was missing.For whatever the reason, most of the reports conclude that, Nayanthara had to stay all night in Malaysian airport on Thursday.Actually, Nayanthara flied Malaysia for one week shooting of Vikram starrer Iru Mugan.

Tamil star Ilayathalapathy Vijay’s fans are a thrilled lot at the moment. The 51 second teaser of Vijay’s latest film Theri is recreating all the existing records on YouTube and is growing its strength minute by minute. Already, the teaser clocked a whopping 12 lakh plus views and 1.34 lakh likes on YouTube.

Interestingly, the teaser starts off and even ends with Vijay reciting the nursery rhyme ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in style. The last shot of the teaser shows Vijay, dressed in a police uniform, reciting the rhyme in the police station with petrified goons around him. This particular shot has become a rage among Vijay’s fans.

Meanwhile, Pawan’s fans too are thrilled to see the uncanny resemblance between Theri’s police station shot and the super hit Anthyakshari scene in Gabbar Singh. In Gabbar Singh too, Pawan plays Anthyakshari scene with a bunch of goons.

Some fans are even alleging that Vijay copied this scene on Theri. Well folks, let’s wait until the film’s release to know the truth!

‘Nannaku Prematho’ has finally crossed the two million dollars mark in USA. On Feb 4th, the movie achieved this feat. Only third Telugu film to achieve this in North American market after ‘Baahubali’ and ‘Srimanthudu’.

While Rajamouli’s mega movie “Baahubali” has grossed nearly seven million dollars, Mahesh Babu’s “Srimanthudu” came near to touch the three million dollars mark but couldn’t do so. Third position belongs to NTR’s “Nannaku Prematho”.

Although “Nannaku Prematho” film has already become third highest grosser in USA market by crossing Attharintiki Daardedi’s gross of 1.89 million dollars in the second week of its run but it took another ten days to cross the two coveted two million dollars mark.

The film has raked in more than Rs 50 cr worldwide share but only in overseas territory that it is bringing profits to the distributors. Incidentally, “Nannaku Prematho” is also biggest grosser in NTR’s career.

Despite some average grossers, the identity of Sudhir Babu in Tollywood is that he is the brother-in-law of Mahesh Babu. And it is his brother-in-law Mahesh again who is taking a step to consolidate Sudhir’s career.

Mahesh Babu who officially turned a producer with ‘Srimanthudu’ will now be producing a film with Sudhir Babu as the hero. Srinu Vaitla is the director.

Normally, it would have been difficult for Sudhir Babu to get a movie in the direction of a top director like Srinu Vaitla. But thanks to successive disasters in the form of ‘Aagadu’ and ‘Bruce Lee’, Srinu Vaitla is also out of work.

Thus, Mahesh’s initiative has made it a win-win situation for everyone. It is now up to Vaitla and Sudhir Babu to justify Mahesh’s faith in them.

Writer Vakkantam Vamsi has been waiting for so long to make debut as director. NTR Jr. promised to do a film under his direction and even Kalyan Ram announced that he will produce the movie in this combination. NTR is supposed to start that film after Koratala Siva’s Janata Garage.

But NTR decided to go with Puri Jagannadh’s film after he is done with Janata Garage. So Vakkantam Vamsi has to wait for another year to turn director or look for another hero.

Vakkantam wanted to make Temper with NTR but has given away the story to Puri Jagan on the actor’s request. He has written another story that has been approved by Tarak, but it looks like he is deliberately delaying it.

Maybe NTR is playing safe by doing movies with established directors at the moment. He may not want to take a risk by doing a movie with an inexperienced director. But making someone wait for years and years without fulfilling the promise isn’t right.

As we all know, Shah Rukh Khan’s much-hyped Dilwale didn’t quite live up to expectations at the domestic box office. Moreover, a few distributors too incurred heavy losses. Now, in a truly unexpected development, it seems that the 50-year-old star is set to help those who suffered losses. For Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale, Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chilles Entertainment turned distributor for the first time. They sold most of their territories in India and kept few areas like Mumbai with them.

As the film was high on buzz and the return of SRK-Kajol was the highlight, the film was sold at a premium price. However, due to certain controversies that got snowballed after Shah Rukh’s statement on intolerance, lot of regions didn’t get a proper release. Unfortunately, most of the shows had to be cancelled in few states of the country due to protest by various right wing organisations.

They threatened to stop the screenings at local cinemas. Due to all this, the overall collections took a beating. The worldwide collections of Dilwale is the highest for any Shah Rukh film but it was in India that the numbers were below expectation. Earlier this month, at a press conference, Shah Rukh Khan said that he wasn’t happy with the Dilwale collections in India. He had said, “I don’t think the film has done as well as it should have. I am personally disappointed with that.”

He had also said, “To be honest, it has perhaps not done as well in India as I would like it to do. But overseas it has done very well in a lot of countries like Germany and Austria. It is quite thrilling that Indian films are reaching far and wide. There are a lot of business opportunities.” Now, according to the trade buzz, Shah Rukh Khan has gone ahead and refunded 50 percent of the loss faced by the distributors.

Trade analyst Komal Nahata tweeted, “SRK does what few wud do. Refunds 50% of the loss of distributors of his Dilwale. That’s what u call a considerate producer.” Down south, it is said that superstar Rajinikanth also takes ownership of his movies that sometimes don’t do well. He also is of the same belief that if there are losses, everyone should bear it and not just the distributors.