Writer Kona Venkat who was in the news for all wrong reasons last year is now hiding away from everyone in the industry and from media as well. While his partner Gopi Mohan is in USA and is silently trying to test his luck at direction.

Kona Venkat used to rob the credit for the success of movies he was part of and bombard in media about his talent. Everyone came to know his real talent when the movies started flopping. When he was tasting success, he used to tell the producers and heroes that his Midas touch can change a movie’s fate. But everyone has realized that he has limited talent.

Kona Venkat and Gopi Mohan were given the credit for story and screenplay for Balakrishna’s Dictator but both of them were nowhere to be seen in the promotions. Normally Kona would not have missed the opportunity to be in the media but this time he is getting only flak. Hence he is safely hiding at his home from all the limelight.

Already, the cinematographer for Nitin-Trivikram’s ‘A Aa’ has been changed twice. Now there is a strong possibility that the music director of the movie may be changed.

Anirudh of Kolaveri Di fame was signed as the music director for this project. But since he is extremely busy in Tamil, he has been unable to give the tunes on time. This is resulting in delay of the shooting.

Trivikram apparently asked Anirudh to submit the entire tunes by a certain date. But Anirudh has said that it would not be possible for him to adhere to that deadline. Hence Trivikram is now believed to be contemplating Mickey J Meyer for the movie.

Looking at the pace of things, industry people say that it is highly unlikely that ‘A Aa’ will be able to meet its target of a Sankranthi release.

Couple of days ago, several photographs showing Megastar Chiranjeevi looking dapper in a twirled moustache when he attended a wedding reception in the capital. The photographs went viral and everyone including Chiru’s fans thought that the new look was for his comeback film.

Now, in his latest interview to a national English news daily, Chiru confirmed that the moustache was indeed a part of his preparations for Kaththi. The Megastar said, “I have been preparing to get my look right for the ‘Kaththi’ remake for the past couple of months.

This moustache is part of my new look.” Kaththi will be directed by VV Vinayak and produced by Ram Charan and Lyca Productions jointly. The regular shooting is expected to kickstart on Charan’s birthday.

Nani’s next, Krishna Gadi Veera Prema Gadha is a table profit venture already to the makers. Abhishek Pictures brought the entire AP and Nizam rights of the film for 10.8 Crore. Bellary Sai will be releasing the film in Ceeded. The budget of the film is already recovered from there itself.

The business in the rest of the areas will make up for Nani’s remuneration while satellite and dubbing rights will be the profit for the makers. The movie is being readied for February 12th release. Nani will be sporting ‘Jai Balayya’ tattoo on his arm.

Andhala Rakshasi fame Hanu Raghavapudi is directing the film. Vishal Chandrasekhar who belongs to AR Rahman school, composed music for the film. Andhala Rakshasi fame Hanu Raghavapudi is directing the film.

Here is a very interesting news for Nandamuri fans. Balakrishna the other day in a TV interview confirmed the debut project of his son, Mokshagna. The young scion will be also a part of Balakrishna’s 100th project, Aditya 999.

Balayya did not divulge further details of Mokshagna’s role. Balayya himself penned the movie story. Singeetham Srinivasa Rao who directed Balayya’s classic, Aditya 369 will also direct the sequel project.

It is also said that Balayya promised Anjali to give a role in the prestigious project. More details of this project will be revealed after Balakrishna completes the promotions of his Dictator. Stay tuned.

Jr NTR’s ‘Nannaku Prematho’ has generated a lot of positive talk and has been declared a hit. But, the buyers have lost out heavily. This is the fourth NTR film that buyers have lost after ‘Rabhasa’, ‘Ramayya Vastavayya’ and ‘Temper’. Of these, Temper did fairly well and raked in Rs 40 crore.

Nannaku Prematho made up to Rs 40 crore. Yet, the buyers have suffered. In case of Nannaku Prematho, the buyers could end up getting 20 per cent loss. The reason for buyers ending up in losses despite the film doing well, according to trade pundits, lies in the producers selling the movie at an exorbitant price.

If the film is sold for anything between Rs 30 to 35 crore, the buyers would be in safe zone. But, an NTR film takes at least 40 crore to make and is sold for Rs 50 crore. This means, the buyers stand to lose despite the film making good business.

Trade analysts feel NTR should rein in his films’ budget and sell the film at a reasonable price to ensure that the buyers are not put to a loss. Otherwise, he would find it difficult to get buyers in future.

Our readers are aware that Sundeep Kishan is doing a film titled 123 which is the remake of Malayalam super hit, Neram. The movie team silently completed the talkie part of the film.

Sundeep Kishan and Anisha Ambrose will reprise the roles which brought super stardom to Nivin Pauly and Nazriya. This movie is being produced by Sudhakar Cherukuri on Pixel Dreams India P Ltd banner and presented by Anil Sunkara on AK Entertainments India Pvt Ltd.

Anil Kanneganti of Mr.Nokia is wielding the megaphone while Sai Karthik is scoring the music. B Rajasekhar is roped in as the DOP while Prasanna of “Cinema Choopistha Mama” will be penning the dialogues.

The shooting of Naga Chaitanya’s Saahasam Swaasaga Saagipo is all done except for the climax of the movie. The makers are targeting April release for the movie. The two teasers released so far have got very good response from all quarters.

They say Daggubati Rana is playing a little cameo in Naga Chaitanya’s next, Saahasam Swaasaga Saagipo directed by Gautam Menon. The movie is a bilingual and the Tamil version has Simbu playing the lead role.

Malayali girl Manjima Mohan is playing the female lead in both the versions. Ravindra Reddy is producing the film in Telugu under his Dwaraka Creations banner while Kona Venkat is co-producing it. World famous AR Rahman is the music composer.

All four movies which released for Sankranthi got a good response from the public in terms of openings. Of the four however, ‘Soggade Chinni Nayana’ is the biggest hit followed by ‘Express Raja’ which is now in a safe zone.

While ‘Nannaku Prematho’ and ‘Dictator’ had the best openings in the first week, the other two movies walked away with good word-of-mouth. ‘Nannaku Prematho’ has grossed around Rs 42 crore so far. It needs a good second weekend too and has some distance to go for it to break even.

‘Dictator’ had a good response in B and C centers, but collections after the festival have shown a significant drop and the movie might end up a loss to buyers.

14 Reels Entertainment suffered two big flops within a short span of time but has recovered pretty quickly. After the debacles of 1 Nenokkadine and Aagadu, 14 Reels chose to do a small budget movie with Nani as the lead. They made a smart choice by signing up Nani who didn’t have Bhale Bhale to his credit by then.

Luckily for them Bhale Bhale Magadivoy turned out to be a huge hit resulting in high expectations on his next film. Additionally Krishnagadi Veera Prema Gatha grabbed eyeballs with interesting promos. The movie is looking so promising that Abhishek Films has bought the distribution rights for entire Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for a very good price.

As per trade this film was bought for around 11 crore which is the record price for a Nani starrer. 14 Reels still holds the rights of Karnataka and overseas. They could fetch very good price for satellite rights too. All in all they have hit a jackpot with this film just because of making right move at the right time.

Power Star Pawan Kalyan seems to be aiming at high success rate with his lucky genres. There is a strong belief among mega fans that Pawan Kalyan is the only hero among his contemporary heroes to have done many experiments which are against to box office hit formulas and that is the reason why many of his movies failed for ten long years at certain period.

” Had Pawan Kalyan not gone against box office calculations, he could have got better success percentage,” say fans. His hit films such as ‘Akkada Ammayi Ikkada Abbayi’, ‘Gokulam Lo Seetha’, ‘Suswagatham’, ‘Tholiprema’, ‘Thammudu’, ‘Badri’, ‘Khushi’, ‘Jalsa’, ‘Gabbar Singh’ and ‘Atharintiki Daredi’ were made with romance, comedy and mass elements and achieved better results.

Pawan Kalyan is currently working for ‘Sardaar Gabbar Singh’. Buzz is that the movie is being made as a hilarious entertainer with Pawan Kalyan’s mark of heroism and mass entertaining elements. According to the latest updates, Pawan Kalyan has given nod to work with SJ Surya for ‘Khushi’s sequel which is also aimed at an entertaining concept. Pawan Kalyan has not done two back to back hilarious entertainers for the past couple of years. All in all, it appears Pawan Kalyan wants to improve his success rate at the moment which may offer abundant pleasure and joy for fans.

Stylish Star Allu Arjun’s Sarainodu began a new schedule today in Hyderabad. Until now, 70% of the movie shooting is complete. Some talkie part and three songs are to be completed. One of this songs will be shot in Spain. The film will have its audio launch on February 14th as Valentines day Special.

The First Look Poster will be released as Republic day Special and the movie is planned for April 8th release as Bunny’s Birthday Special. Disha Patani who made her debut with Loafer will be dancing for the item song in the film. The movie is said to be an action oriented love story.

Both Bunny and Allu Arjun are on a high after their recent successes – S/O Satyamurthy and Legend. Gundello Godari fame Aadi Pinnisetty is turning baddie with this movie. SS Thaman will be scoring the music. Senior Producer Allu Aravind will be producing the film on his prestigious Geetha Arts banner.

Mumbai: Filmmaker Abhishek Kapoor, who roped in Tabu to play a prominent role in “Fitoor”, says she is a director’s dream. Veteran actress Rekha was initially roped in to play the character of Begum in “Fitoor”,but she walked out of the project in May 2015 and the role went to Tabu.

“Tabu is one of the few actors who can mould herself according to the character. She is a dream for a director,” Kapoor told reporters in a group interview. “She never looks into mirror or monitor and always trusts the crew on sets. I am thankful to Tabu who stepped in at the last moment and got into the skin of the character within three to four days,” added the filmmaker.

Kapoor, who has widely shot “Fitoor” in Kashmir, says he was very clear that he wanted to shoot this film in that state. “Many people told me not to shoot in Kashmir and gave me the option to shoot either in Himachal or abroad, but Kashmir has a different beauty altogether. Dal Lake in Kashmir is something I can’t take it away from the film. I was adamant I will make my film in Kashmir,” said Kapoor.

The movie is an adaptation of Charles Dickens classic novel “Great Expectations” and will have Katrina Kaif playing Firdaus while Aditya Kapoor will portray the character of Noor. The film also stars Aditi Rao Hydari, Lara Dutta and Rahul Bhatt. It will hit theaters on February 12.