Making a film, in these production-cost spiraling times, is no easy joke.

If anything, only the truly committed and the inexorably linked to the industry make films these days.

But production houses understand that they no longer can afford to splash on the extravagant functions as they used to before.

The launch functions and other celebrations are slowly coming down. Or, if anything, becoming highly low key.

The audio release functions are a good pointer.

Recently we had the audio launch of the prestigious film Allari Pidugu. Starring Balakrishna and directed by Jayanth, one would have thought that the music to be launched with fanfare. Instead, they had a very low-key launch.

Ditto for Nagarjuna's Super. Now, Rajamouli's Chatrapathi has joined the list. This Prabhas-Shreya starrer is one of the big movies of the season.

But after days of dillydallying on the launch date, the producer has finally decided to launch the audio straight into the market without any hype.

Well, the industry itself is facing the music of financial crunch!