Year 2009: Tollywood's nightmare
- IndiaGlitz, [Thursday,December 31 2009]
If there is anything that has been good about Year 2009 for Telugu cinema, it's the ootential that the producers and filmmakers realised that the box office held. If 'Arundhati' and 'Magadheera' simply ruled the box office, 'Kick', 'Arya2', 'Bumper Offer' and 'Bendu Apparao' crossed the expectations of their makers, with Kick raking over Rs. 22 cr.
So, if Anushka's graphics-significant film and Charan's visually wowee historical love story were the greatest box office winners, Ravi Teja's madcap humour and Allu Arjun-starrer 'Arya2' were leaders too.
Seems that all was not well for Tollywood though. The industry continued to lose crores of rupees for piracy and total absence of starrers during the Sankranthi, Summer and Dussehra. Involvement of youth and mass rages like Pawan Kalyan, NTR Jr. meant no films from them. Mahesh Babu took his time off and started a film with Trivikram long after memories of Athidhi's failure fazed out of his fans' minds.
As Chiru was making a flop innings in politics, Balakrishna confidently juggled politics and films, by making time in the thick of his campaigning for TD, for his May disaster Mitrudu. Nagarjuna and Venkatesh did not produce blockbusters. Worsening the situation, Prabhas, who has good admiration among the masses, dampened Tolly spirits with Ek Niranjan, in associated with Puri Jagannadh. Ditto with Saleem.
Producers continued to burn their hands, while exhibitors and distributors were left in the lurch. December held some promise with over a dozen films (yes, literally dozen), but film business suffered a radical blow because of bandhs and hartals that took a toll on cinema without a respite. Finally, BO hopefuls Adurs and Leader did not even hit the marquee.