Directors going to the extra mile of abusing and humiliating actors to extract best performances is nothing new in film industry and our very own director Teja is known for such temperament. Yet another star director joins the list now.

Selvaraghavan (Sri Raghava in Telugu) is co-writing and producing a movie in his wife Geethanjali’s direction. The film is titled Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam and it had senior editor Kola Bhaskar’s son making his acting debut. Also, Punjabi actress Wamiqa Gabbi makes her Tamil debut with this film.

In her latest interview, Wamiqa, who will also make her Telugu debut with Sudheer Babu’s Bhale Manchi Roju, narrated her first day shooting experience with Selvaraghavan. Apparently, Wamiqa was struggling with her lines and Selva, after waiting for while, lost his patience and shouted at Wamiqa amidst the entire unit.

Shocked by this, Wamiqa was left in tears and immediately called up her dad and told him that she won’t do the film. Her father, who always believed that Wamiqa was a born actress, criticized her for her low spirit which was when Wamiqa determined to give her best shot for the film.

Writer KV Vijayendra Prasad, who is basking in the glory of blockbusters like Baahubali, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, is now under fire as allegations of plagiarism cropped up. According to fresh reports, Bajrangi Bhaijaan has been slapped with Rs 50 Crore copyright infringement suit. Alleging that the movie has violated copyright law, Writer, director and TV Producer Mahim Joshi sued the makers of Bajrangi Bhaiijaan for a whopping Rs 50 Crore.

As per reports, Mahim had registered his story sometime back with the Indian Film and Television Producers Council and the Association of Motion Pictures and TV Programme Producers. However, after his contract with Yashi Multi Media (owned by Suresh, Vivek Oberoi) ended, Mahim approached Viacom 18 with the story. It’s learnt that Mahim was shocked to see the similarities to his story in Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Parveez Shaikh of Viacom 18 having co-credits in the screenplay of BB.

Mahim approached the court alleging the violation of copyright law. Following Mahim’s allegations, court saw the detailed comparison of the Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s scenes and shots with Mahim’s script and concluded that there were several similarities. Now, all parties associated with the film, including producers Rockline Venkatesh, Rajeesh Bhatt, Salman Khan, writer KV Vijayendra Prasad, director Kabir Khan and a co-producer were asked to respond to the allegations. The court asked them to send their replies by Oct 21.

Gunasekhar’s Rudhramadevi had a sensational first weekend collecting about 20 Crores only in the Telugu States. However the movie could not keep up the steam from its fourth day. The movie succumbed to the pressure of the working Monday and witnessed drops.

The collections in Nizam are slightly on better side. The working day effect and the negative talk and reviews had their impact on the movie on fourth day. Even though the drops are there, the movie performance can be still considered as ‘decent’ given that talk.

Things will only get tougher for the movie in coming days. The second weekend also may not be rosy as Ram Charan’s Bruce Lee is releasing on Friday and it will be the pick of the film over the weekend.

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• Akkineni family hero, Sushanth had started his career several years ago and churned out handful films but he is still struggling in the industry. His last few film, Adda was also an average grosser. He is now working with comedy director G.Nageswar Reddy to make a mark on audience.

  The shooting of the film is progressing at brisk pace. We came to know that the makers have decided to name the film as Atadukundham Raa. Incidentally it is the starting lyric of a chartbuster song in Akhil’s child debut movie, Sisindri.

  As always, Sushanth’s mother, Naga Susheela and Chintalapudi Srinivasa Rao are jointly producing the movie under Sri Nag Corporation banner. The makers will very soon unveil the first look of the film and other details.

In the wake of Senior director Dasari Narayan Rao also demanding “Bruce Lee” to be postponed, Telugu film industry is right now divided into two groups. One for the postponement and the other against it.  In fact, release date of “Bruce Lee” got confirmed 3 months ago as October 16th and the makers have stuck to it though onlookers doubted the competition and arrival of this Ram Charan’s film.

On the flip side, Gunasekhar got his “Rudramadevi” pushed from May 15th to 24th, then to couple of other dates in next months and finally declared October 9th as the date. Till a day before release, no one believed the film is actually releasing, and also Gunasekhar hasn’t made any requests to other biggies to give him space at box office.

Now that “Rudhramadevi” is doing well at box office, few bigheads took Guna’s side to ask Bruce Lee for a postponement. Industry biggies however say, if they pressurise Ram Charan to back out from race now, it will set a bad precedent. They ask, “Someone will confirm their date 6 months in advance, and in the last minute another film will arrive in front of it and demand postponement of latter. How long we could entertain such pleas?”

At the same time, there are those who express their sympathy with “Rudhramadevi”, and accusing that Ram Charan has no heart to say a sincere-talented-hardworking producer like Gunasekhar. Looking at all this, should we now ask, if Bruce Lee won’t get postponed, will sympathy lie with Gunasekhar or Ram Charan?

A big producer commented: “Knowing that Bruce Lee is coming on October 16th, Guna locked 9th as release date. So, he took a brave decision already. Let’s not make his decision cowardice by asking Charan to postpone. Even DVV Danayya invested a bomb and missing out festival season will bring him some losses, no matter what veterans say.

Yes, seasons are not needed to release films of big heroes, but to achieve big revenue targets, seasons are essential. Otherwise why big heroes like Pawan, Mahesh, Charan, Jr NTR and Bunny target festivals all the time?”

Already Charan shared his view that Gunasekhar is the one who came in the middle while they have planned out well. So, it’s upto Guna now, to demand Bruce Lee postponement or not.

Veteran actor and filmmaker Dasari Narayana Rao watched Rudhramadevi last night and was heavily impressed with the historical grandeur the film offered. Dasari himself organised a press meet this afternoon and heaped praises on the film’s star cast and the director.

Dasari, who is known for his occasionally startling comments on Mega family, drenched Allu Arjun with countless praises. Dasari said that Bunny had four fantastic entires in the film and that his introduction scene was outstanding, apart from the tower scene. Dasari said that Bunny looked like a true warrior in his Gona Ganna Reddy getup.

Not stopping here, Dasari also lauded Bunny for his voluntary offer of acting in the film and that he is a great inspiration for other stars in Tollywood. Dasari said that other stars should follow Bunny’s spirit for Tollywood’s wellbeing.

Talking about Anushka’s performance as Rudhramadevi, Dasari said that he used to think of Anushka only as a glamor doll until now but Anushka blew his mind away with her powerful and yet emotional performance as the warrior queen who struggles with her gender identity. Dasari further susrpised as he called Anushka as a ‘Mahanati’ and compared her with acting legends like Savithri, Vanisri, Jayasudha and Sujatha.

Yesterday morning, senior actor and filmmaker Dasari Narayana Rao sparked off numerous discussions regarding the release dates clash between the two big films of this Dasara season and said that Rudhramadevi would have created box-office history had the next week’s release (read Bruce Lee) is delayed by one week.

This prompted the crucial man who is related to both Rudhramadevi and Bruce Lee, Allu Arjun. Allu Arjun garnered appreciation for his brilliant performance as Gona Gannareddy in Rudhramadevi. Now, he has become the real-life Robin Hood as he took his cousin Ram Charan’s side in these testing moments.

In his words, Bunny tweeted, “It is unfair to blame the producer of BRUCELEE for not moving their release date by a week. They have announced it long back that their release date is October 16th. RUDRAMADEVI was supposed to release on September 4th which they could not for many reasons. Knowing the release date of BRUCELEE the producer of RUDHRAMADEVI released it on October 9th with a hope that both films can run in the market simultaneously. Now it is unfair for anyone to blame BRUCELEE for overlapping.”

This once again shows how matured and sportive Bunny is. While he seemingly looks to be taking his family’s side, Bunny also cleared the air regarding Bruce Lee overlapping with Rudhramadevi, whereas the real scenario is quite opposite. Needless to say, Bunny’s explanation will put an end to the topic for now.