Veteran actor-filmmaker Dasari Narayana Rao has once again made headlines with his striking comments on the star families in Tollywood. Speaking at the audio launch event of Swati-Naveen Chandra’s upcoming horror flick, Tripura, Dasari first praised Naveen Chandra for making a mark in Tollywood without any filmy background but just with his hard work and talent.

The veteran then spewed fire on star families saying that at least 10 actors are entering films from star families these days. It is very difficult for outsiders to get a chance and even if they get a chance, it is very difficult to prove their talent. It’s not easy for outsiders in the industry.

Dasari then praised filmmakers like Krish, Rajamouli and Shekar Kammula for making successful films even without top stars. “A director can create a hundred stars, but a star cannot create a director or a star,” said Dasari. The also reiterated his earlier comments of small films should release on festivals and showed the successes of Raju Gari Gadhi and Kanche as examples.

Mumbai: Actress Radhika Apte considers the experience of being on the jury for the first time in her career fun and challenging at the same.At the ongoing 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, Radhika was one of the jury members of Dimensions Mumbai, a short film competition section.

“It was challenging. To be on the jury and judge films can be a big responsibility. But thanks to Dibakar (Banerjee) who, as the head of jury, really helped us to get through this,” Radhika told IANS. Explaining why the process was also fun, she said: “We saw a total of 23 short films. The whole experience was so refreshing and we got to see some really interesting films. It’s not every day we as actors get to watch so many films and analyse them.”

“Dimensions Mumbai” is an initiative to spot the up-and-coming talents in the city. These films were unique, yet similar in its way of paying tribute to the city. “I liked how the city was portrayed in so many different aspects.

I would not have thought about certain things on which some films were made. There is so much talent and it is so encouraging to see them making use of the opportunity,” she said. The jury also featured Parineeti Chopra, Juhi Chaturvedi and Suraj Sharma.

Akhil, the youngest Akkineni, was earlier supposed to greet his fans on Dasara. However, last minute glitch in the film’s visual effects caused a devastating postponement of the film. The delay literally wrecked the hearts of fans who even went averse against the film. The disappointment increased even more with the rumors of the film being delayed further to Sankranti next year.

However, positive buzz is slowly surrounding the film once again with the confirmation of the film’s release on 11th November on the occasion of Diwali. While fans are thrilled with this confirmation, here’s a big threat. It is well known that Akhil will also release in Tamil a grand way. In fact, the Tamil version’s producer C Kalyan even planned to invite Superstar Rajinikanth for the audio launch.

But the 11th November release would see Akhil locking horns with two of the biggest stars in Tamil, Kamal Haasan and Thala Ajith. While Kamal’s Cheekati Rajyam is releasing on the 10th of November, Ajith’s Vedalam is releasing on the 11th. With two huge films in the bout, whether there will be any takers for Akhil is something to be seen.

Will the Tamil version go for a separate release when there is no big competition at the box-office? Will there be the same excitement till then are the questions bothering Akkineni fans. Luckily, Akhil’s Telugu version will have less or no competition at the box-office this Diwali, with Ravi Teja’s Bengal Tiger delayed by a week.

Giving ‘titles’ to heroes is merely to satisfy fans. Whether Megastar, Superstar or any other Natural Star, that’s the only reason. Fans get lots of happier when their favourite heroes are being addressed with these titles.

In the recent times we have seen Ram Charan giving up his title of “Mega Powerstar” for the film Govindudu Andarivadele. He felt that this happens to be a family drama much closer to his heart, and hence such titles won’t do the justification. Later he re-used his title for “Bruce Lee”, because it’s a commercial masala movie. Guess who got inspired for this act. It’s none other than his brother, cousin Varun Tej, who asked director Krish not use any such titles.

Actually few people from mega camp have fixed the title ‘Mega Prince’ title for Varun Tej, for his dashing looks like a prince. However, Varun asked “Kanche” makers not to use any such title because this is a honest film that deals with casteism and racism. Both Ram Charan and Varun Tej are standing as good example in that sense.

She was a super model and a top star when she got married. A little later, she delivered a baby and after that she took a break from films.Three years later, when Aishwarya Rai announced that she will get back, it became a topic for discussion all over India.

Just about anyone and everyone started dissecting her decision and it was largely felt that she will have a decent comeback. However, watching the promos of her comeback film Jazbaa and seeing her awesome figure, the expectations from the film went to a new level. But the film was declared a flop after the very first show and it ended up being a box-office disaster. That apart, Ash also has another reason to feel sorry about Jazbaa. The latest story doing rounds is that she hasn’t been paid her due for the film.

Apparently, she was promised Rs 4 crores as remuneration. The makers gave her Rs 1 crore initially and then made her a partner in the film and even gave her name in the credits as a producer. Now that the film has become a disaster, she hasn’t been offered any money and she cannot ask them as there are absolutely no profits to show.

Talk is that Aishwarya stayed away from the promotions due to remuneration issues and it is said that neither Amitabh or Abhishek spoke about the film due to same reasons.

Long ago, Kalyan Ram had a hit in Atanokkade. Then he had a slew of flops and things were not working in his favour. That’s when he made Pataas and also acted in it.Well, all stars were in his favour and the film was a box office success. For the first time in his career, Kalyan Ram had a commercial hit to his credit. But that’s where the good news ended for Kalyan Ram. He then made Kick 2 as a producer. Now that story is well-known.

Though the film had Ravi Teja, Rakul Preet and Surender Reddy in the team, it totally failed at the box office. Bad story and equally bad narration marred any chances of it making money. Of course, being the producer he could have saved the film, but Kick 2 became a huge disaster in both Kalyan Ram and Ravi Teja’s careers.

And now, he has a release in Sher. In this case, it was obvious that Kalyan Ram was not interested half way through the shooting. After giving a huge hit like Pataas, it was pretty clear that he had no hopes on Sher. In fact, the film was also released with minimum publicity. And as anticipated, it has got bad reviews from all over.

Even the buyers did not bother to promote the film and there is general feeling in the industry that this could be one of its kind film where a hit hero’s film hasn’t been promoted at all.

Some hits surprise us and one such film is Omkar’s Raju Gari Gadi. The horror comedy has struck a chord with the audiences and the film has become a super hit.The week before saw the release of Bruce Lee which was a huge disaster. And Rudramadevi had steady collections which have dipped eventually.

Since Akhil got postponed, last week saw the release of a small and one medium range film.

Kanche was an experiment by Krish wherein he recreated the times of World War II and that was the novelty element that worked well with the audiences. Also, the film’s emotional story was well-received by the audience and it has been making steady collections at the box office.

Another film that became a surprise hit is Omkar’s Raju Gari Gadi. The film has been made with Rs 3 crores and it is now heading towards reaching the Rs 10 crores mark.

While Bruce Lee has become one of the biggest disasters of the year, Rudramadevi managed to make good money, got into the safe zone and is now labelled an average hit.

As the release dilemma behind ‘Akhil’ still continues with date tentatively locked as November 11, the same is posing a hurdle for ‘Bengal Tiger’ in hitting the screens. Produced by KK Radha Mohan and directed by Sampat Nandi starring Raviteja, Tamanna, Rashi Khanna in main leads, ‘Bengal Tiger’ is done with whole of production and post production works.

In fact, Sampat made the end production available to fulfill the release date earlier announced as November 5. Now that Nithin and Sudhakar Reddy owned Global Film Distribution is common distributor of ‘Akhil’ and ‘Bengal Tiger’ in Nizam region, they do not want any clash in the release dates of both the movies.

‘We are very well prepared and accessible for any date to release. As soon as necessary discussions will be completed with Nithin and Sudhakar Reddy, we will be in a position to announce a final date. All the gossips regarding re-shoot of ‘Bengal Tiger’ are completely false. We have got a superb quality product with co-operation from entire unit. This film will surely stand as one of biggest commercial successes in Mass Maharaja career,’ producer Radha Mohan announced.

If ‘Akhil’ is confirmed to arrive on November 11, then ‘Bengal Tiger’ has to lose the date of November 5.

Allu Arjun is a complete family man. He offers something sweet surprises to Fans by sharing his family pictures. This time, on the occasion of Halloween’s Day, he posted the above photo wherein Bunny’s son Ayaan is stylishly posing as Dr. Ayaan.

‘Fun Stuff with my little son…! Happy Halloween’s Day,’ Bunny posted on social networking. Father is an actor and son is a doctor… little Dr. Allu Ayaan.

The virtual wars between Nandamuri and Mega Fans are pretty much known to all. These two groups always search for a reason to debate. However, times have changed and we see films like ‘Sher’ from Nandamuri Kalyan Ram proving the atmosphere here in film industry is so friendly. As we all know, Nandamuri films provide no scope for uttering of Mega family heroes names and same applies vice versa.

May be, this is for the first time director Mallikarjun experimented of taking the name of Pawan Kalyan in one of the dialogues written for ‘Sher.’ None other than hero Kalyan Ram mouths the name of Pawan Kalyan when taking the reference of super hit ‘Kushi’ film. While many would have thought about negation from Nandamuri Fans to hear such name, surprisingly whistles were blown in theaters on mere hearing of Pawan name.

‘Sher’ has clearly proved that industry is one and Fans are also united. It’s because of a section of egoistical Fans, there are fencings fabricated between Fans groups. Films like ‘Sher’ tried to take them away.

Superstar Mahesh Babu will be back to work from tomorrow after a brief holiday in Paris with his family. A new schedule of his next, Brahmotsavam will begin tomorrow. The makers of Brahmotsavam are planning to chart non stop schedules till the shooting is complete.

The makers have three release dates – March 25th, April 8th and April 15th, 2016 in mind currently and are yet to finalize one. The film will be most likely the first star release in Summer. Samantha, Kajal Aggarwal and Pranitha are playing the female leads in this film.

Srikanth Addala who delivered a super hit to Mahesh with Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu is hoping to recreate the magic once again. Potluri Vara Prasad will be producing the film on his PVP Cinemas banner. Mickey J Meyer is the music composer.

The long leisure spell in Victory Venkatesh career is all set to come to a closure in next one or two months when director Maruthi begins his next. In the past, they both have announced ‘Radha’ but unfortunately shelved it just after opening. Currently, Maruthi showed his potenaitla in pulling up youth and family audience equally with huge success of ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoy.’

Although Venkatesh has two scripts, one from Kranthi Madhav and one from Maruthi, the Daggubati star voted for Maruthi. As of now, pre production works are progressing at decent speed and UV Creations are planning to take over this project from Haarika-Hassine Creations. As and when the deal gets closed, an official announcement is expected. However, it is still uninformed on whether they are reviving ‘Radha’ or altogether a new script is taken.

Nayanathara is set to make a comeback into direct Telugu films with this venture. Venky and Nayan make a wonderful and successful pair. We need to wait and see; how good Maruthi exploits on this best opportunity to take his image to next level of directors list.