Title troubles

Shakespeare oft-quoted ‘What’s in name…’ line is almost a cliche in film circles.

Every time a film runs into a problem over its title, every writer reaches for Shakespeare’s quote.

And so, keeping that tradition alive, we do the same and ask: ‘What’s in a name’.

Plenty. And in the case of Pawan Kalyan it could have been the difference between success and failure.

Now, everyone is blaming the title Gudumba Shankar for the failure actor’s film.

Says a leading distributor: "The movie on its own is good. It has some really funny sequences. Pawan was really wacky in his role.  It had potential to be a winner".

So where was the hitch?

In the title.

Tollywood is unanimous in saying that with a name Gudumba Shankar, the audiences and the fans of Pawan were expecting a different kind of film. And when they saw the film to be different, there was an instant disconnect between the two.

This naming business is indeed a tricky one. And Tollywood is now playing safe by picking lines from popular songs as titles or falling back on old hits.