Mumbai: After wooing the audiences with her mesmerizing performance in ‘Bajirao Mastani’, Deepika Padukone is all set to conquer Hollywood with xXx sequel.

Even though the actress shared a picture with Hollywood star Vin Diesel, she hasn’t yet confirmed the reports. However, Filmmaker DJ Caruso, the director of ‘xXx: The Return of Xander Cage’ has confirmed the reports on Twitter.

While interacting with his fans, the director revealed that the actress will join the film’s team in February and start with the shooting.

This Sankranthi, Balayya and Junior NTR will be competing at the box-office courtesy of ‘Dictator’ and ‘Nannaku Prematho’. Given the strained relations between them, there is a lot of interest as to whose movie would attract greater attention. The answer to that is probably Junior NTR and the reason is the director, Sukumar.

His last film ‘Nenokkadine’ was a flop, but it turned out to be yet another classic for Mahesh Babu. And since he has now teamed up with Junior, people are curious to see what kind of script; the duo has come up with. On the other hand, it is taken for granted that Balakrishna’s movie will be a regular commercial entertainer.

The last experimental film Balayya did in recent times must be ‘Pandurangadu’ and last heard, Disney is trying to acquire the rights of this film. So, because of the novelty factor, Junior NTR’s film might garner greater attention.

Comedian Brahmanandam is being felicitated by a leading entertainment channel on the occasion of completing 1029 movies. Reaching 1000 movies is a major milestone that should be celebrated. But why 1029 in particular? Well, Brahmanandam approached the channel to felicitate him on the eve of completing 1000 movies but the delay in planning has resulted in him completing 1029 movies.

The event also has got an interesting title “Brahmanandotsavam”. In Mahesh Babu’s Brahmotsavam, he was not given any role so far but he has got his own Brahmotsvam.

The felicitation event will be held on the coming Sunday (10th Jan) at Annapurna Seven Acres in Hyderabad. All the top heroes are invited for the event as they have long association with Brahmanandam.

Remember Anitha, the heroine of ‘Nuvvu Nenu’, ‘Nuvve Nuvve’ and ‘Sriram’? This girl who made her debut with Hindi television had a reasonable decent career in Tollywood.

After her career ended, she got married to Telugu boy Rohit Reddy and bid adieu to films. But she was always conservative on screen and never given to exposing. Hence, it was rather surprising to see her post hot pictures of herself on Twitter.

She apparently celebrated the New Year at a beach resort in Bali and posted those pictures which were rather hot. Of course, her husband was also present in those pictures. But they did take Tollywood fans by surprise as they had always pictured her as a conventional person owing to the kinds of roles she did.

Madhurima Banerjee may not be getting leading roles anymore but she is making her presence felt by taking up supporting characters.

Madhurima has recently made a mark with her supporting role in the movie Temper. She is occasionally sizzling in hot item numbers too.

Sadly these offers are not doing justice to her beauty and talent. Madhurima is still hoping for a turnaround and making it loud and clear to the filmmakers with smoldering hot photo shoots. Wish she gets a chance to set the silver screen on fire in this avatar.

Bollywood Star Hero, Sanjay Dutt who is currently serving his sentence in 1993 illegal possession of arms case, will walk free out of the Yeravada Jail on 27th of next month completing his sentence. In fact, Sanju Baba was to release on 25th but his jail stay got extended as he overextended his parole time by 2 days.

Sanjay Dutt was awarded 5 years imprisonment sentence due to his involvement in the March 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. In 2013, he was sentenced to imprisonment for 5 years and was shifted to Yeravada Central jail.

The actor however never really served the sentence other than his 1.5 years in jail as under-trial prisoner. After the 2013 verdict, he is mostly been on furloughs on various reasons. Anyways, this will comes as huge relief for his fans and producers.

Eyebrows were raised when the news broke about Konidela Niharika’s silver screen debut. Many heroes have been introduced from the megastar’s family but not even one girl from the family tried to test the Tollywood waters. Niharika Konidela, daughter of Chiranjeevi’s brother Nagababu has always had the penchant for acting.

Niharika started off with short films and later taken up the job as a television host. She got the looks and has the confidence to face the camera and it was obvious that she finally stepped into films. However mega family was not entirely happy with hers decision. Nagababu tried to convince but has given up as she was very passionate about pursuing a career in films.

No one knew what Niharika was capable of until she imitated her dad in the special show aired on New Year eve. Nagababu was awestruck to see Niharika putting up a confident show. Niharika not only performed well but also has impressed everyone with her comic timing. This show is trending on YouTube with high number of views. So the girl has the talent and let’s see if she gets unconditional support from the mega fans or not.

Ratan Rajut, who came back in limelight after signing TV show ‘Jai Santoshi Maa,’ was allegedly molested on the sets.

Ratan who was a part of hits show called ‘Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya hi Kijo’ was a part of Bigg Boss also. Except for dramatic Swayamwar, she hardly could be in the headlines. But her latest show ‘Jai Santoshi Maa’ brought her back in news for her performance.

However, She was molested on the sets of the show by a light man. Ratan demanded an action, but her words apparently fell on deaf ears. She did not take it down and brought the shoot of the show to a halt. Eventually, the crew member was sacked and Ratan resumed the shoot. However, no one from the cast and crew has spoken out about the incident yet.

For a big movie to record biggest of collections, it’s the opening Box Office performance and first three days of shares would determine the overall range. This formula applies very well for big budgeted movies joined with star heroes. There is none other film in Sankranthi race bigger than ‘Nannaku Prematho’ and the reason is Junior NTR, Sukumar and BVSN Prasad forming a spectacular team.

Announcing the release date is not going to be the climax for a film. In fact, the real fight in current competition begins with securing of possible maximum number of release screens and then motivating Fans communities to propel the pre release buzz. For time being, nothing seems to be working on the part of Jr NTR with Nandamuri Balakrishna team giving their 101 percent efforts on release strategy of ‘Dictator.’

Reports are coming in about big names in Ceded and Krishna districts have accumulated huge number of screen count for ‘Dictator’ release and then giving a part of them to ‘Soggade Chinni Nayana’ making it very difficult for ‘Nannaku Prematho’ to get the volume it required. How far these influential equations would adversely affect Jr NTR Box Office calculations has to be wait and seen.

Entry of Dil Raju into Pongal race acquiring ‘Dictator’ theatrical distribution rights for Nizam region really made Balakrishna Fans go merry. In less than three to four days, Dil Raju’s name also getting attached to Sharwanand’s ‘Express Raja’ has sent a shocking wave because trade reports went against ‘Dictator.’ Yes, you heard it right. Eros International and Sriwass demanding high prices for ‘Dictator’ Nizam rights made Dil Raju to withdraw from the deal and bagged ‘Express Raja’ immediately.

Apparently, Dil Raju loves to play intelligent games betting safely on low or medium budget films with extra ordinary material. Of course ‘Dictator’ has the star value of Nandamuri Balakrishna and can be a big bet for Pongal but it doesn’t mean, other films have to be undermined.

Here comes big question from Nandamuri Fans circles on who is it dealing with distribution of ‘Dictator’ in Nizam now? If Dil Raju is really out of game, securing high number of screens can be a big problem for ‘Dictator.’ Let us see, what happens in next two to three days.