The last half of 2004 and the early part of 2005 was perhaps one of the most prolific times for Tollywood.

We had releases after releases as films were churned out as if on an assembly line.

And most of them were high profile too with the likes of Nag's, Venkatesh, Balakrishna, Pawan Kalyan testing their luck at the box office.

But now the assembly line seems to have stopped running.

Over the next 30 odd days, there are not going to be any big releases (except perhaps for Chakram).

This is going to be one of the driest summers, says Sivaprasad Rao, a trade pundit.

With Indo-Pak cricket series set to take charge of public consciousness and also the exam season also fast approaching, producers are not ready to take chances.

As we have written in these columns, only bilingual films are making it to the theaters for this Ugadi.

But once the April threshold is crossed, the month of May promises rich action and high stakes. Starting with Chiranjeevi's film, we will have Venky's Subhash Chandra Bose and Nag's new film.

"May promises to be hectic," says another distributor.

So what are witnessing now is a lull before storm.