SouthScope: Suriya’s Telugu debut, an update on the shooting ban, and more

In our weekly peek into happenings in the southern film industries, a look at how the month of August has fared so far.

ByBhawana Tanmayi

Published Aug 19, 2022 | 3:18 PM ⚊UpdatedAug 19, 2022 | 3:18 PM

actor suriya

Tamil actor Suriya's Telugu debut film will go on floors soon. (Suriya Sivakumar/Facebook)

So far so good

The month of August, though not over yet, has brought back some of the lost glory of the theatres. Footfalls are up and people are thronging the halls to catch the latest releases — just like in the old days!  All thanks to three movies.

Sita Ramam, Bimbisaara and Karthikeya 2 are blockbuster hits at the box office and collections are pouring in. The producers of these films are, naturally, extremely happy.

Their success has, once again, underlined a simple fact: Audiences are looking for refreshing and quality content. They are willing to abandon the OTT platforms, step out of their homes, and spend their hard-earned money to watch movies that provide these.

Clearly, this is no time for routine or stale stories!

Macherla Niyojakavargam falls into this category, and that is perhaps why the audience rejected this Nithiin-starrer.

Meanwhile, Vijay Devarakonda’s much-awaited film Liger is all set to hit the screens on 25 August. Directed by Puri Jagannadh, Liger is being released in multiple languages and across multiple states.

The entire Telugu film industry is keeping its fingers crossed and hoping that August will end with a bang, instead of a whimper.

Suriya to begin shooting for his Telugu film

Actor Suriya is all set to begin shooting for his Telugu debut film. Directed by Siva of Viswasam and Annatthhe fame and produced by UV Creations, the film will see Pooja Hegde playing the leading lady in what is her first collaboration with the Tamil superstar.

While we don’t quite know what the film is all about, what we do know — and this surprised us — is that the film will be shot in and around Chennai, not in Hyderabad.

Popular producer Gnanavel Raja will be handling the production in collaboration with UV Creations. The film will be shot in Telugu and Tamil. More details are awaited.

Shootings to resume next week?

Film shootings were stopped in Tollywood on 1 August. Over the recent past, the Telugu Film Producers’ Guild (TFPG) has held several meetings regarding this contentious issue and, finally, an official announcement on resuming shootings has been made. Projects can go on the floors once again from next week.

The TFPG meetings were held in order to bring about some changes in the various stages of filmmaking. One of the most talked-about topics at these meetings was remunerations. As per the update from the guild, there will be no day-wise remunerations to actors for a film, but a package.

In any event, the decision to resume shooting will come as a relief to the thousands of employees and workers of the 24 crafts. These include technicians, make-up arts and even the lowly spot boys, many of them the sole breadwinners of their families.

No premiers, previews overseas

Previews and premieres at home are par for the course. But a recent trend has been the holding of such events abroad as well, with stars and celebrities — and of course, the media — in attendance. The idea is to create a huge buzz around the releasing film. Producers of almost all films were organising such events.

But given the current downtrend in the industry, the overseas previews and premiers are being shelved by most producers, in a bid to cut costs.

Of course, a little bird tells us that, the costs apart, one other reason the producers have realised is that far from creating a positive buzz, some of these have resulted in bad word-of-mouth for the film, resulting in a loss of collections at the box office.

Guess it’s safer to just release the film and let the audience decide, instead of generating negative publicity that will keep them away!

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