The festival of Sankranthi is the most auspicious for the Telugu people and the culture is imbibed into the Tollywood circuit as well.
The cine folks believe that since it is the opening of the year, they feel that a good start to the box office will always lead to good results down the line. Therefore, they come up with the best of the big budget movies and want to be the first winners in the list.
Now, the Sankranthi for 2011 is complete and four films were in the race for top honors. Three out of the four were big banner and big star flicks while the fourth was more of a urban treat. So, here is a look at the fate of all the films now that the festival frenzy is over.
Parama Veera Chakra:This was the most hyped and much awaited film from Nandamuri Balakrishna. After the blockbuster hit of ‘Simha’, many expected Balayya to repeat the magic and the fact that this was also the 150th directorial venture of Dasari Narayana Rao added to the hype. However, the film turned out to be a colossal disaster at the box office.
Though Balayya did justice to his act, many blamed the weak handling by Dasari which resulted in the flop. A film which is reportedly made at Rs 20 crore budget is currently scrambling to touch even Rs 2 crores.
Anaganaga Oka Dheerudu:
A super hyped fantasy flick, the film had many highlights. It marked the debut of Shruti Haasan and Lakshmi Manchu in Telugu. It also welcomed the Hollywood giant Walt Disney into Telugu. Above all, this had Siddarth in an ambitious role of a warrior while the director if Kovelamudi Prakash, son of K Raghavendar Rao. Despite so many plusses, the film still turned out to be a dud. Yet again, the cause for that is Prakash and his poor directorial abilities, said many.
Mirapakaya:
Mass maharaja Ravi Teja seems to be riding on luck somewhat. His earlier venture was ‘Don Seenu’ which scraped into a safe zone thanks to few external factors and the glamour of Shriya. This time, he has emerged to be the lucky winner once again. Though the film was not worthy of being given a pass mark, the poor performance of other two films and the crowd pulling factor of Ravi Teja worked the trick and reports say that the film is inching towards a commercial hit. This in a way, is relief to the box office.
Golconda High School:
The soft spoken hero Sumanth has arrived with an offbeat venture this time and this is the rather unconventional treat from director Indraganti Mohana Krishna of ‘Ashta Chemma’ fame. With cricket as the backdrop and sticking to the environment of the school like the title suggests, the film has got a mixed response. While few connected to the film very well on nostalgic grounds and love for cricket, few felt that it lacked the velocity and intensity to grip the audience. Overall, this is a clean film amidst the lot of masala flicks and with a message.
So folks, the Sankranthi season has given an overall disappointing result and now, the focus will be on the summer releases. Let us see if the heat picks up by then or not.
