After casting a spell on the audience and breaking box office records in Mollywood, will the Malayalam remake of ‘Drishyam’ achieve the same feat in Telugu?
The Venkatesh and Meena starrer released on Friday amidst high expectations. To start with, the Malayalam movie, also titled ‘Drishyam’, was released in December 2013 and gave a new lease of life to senior actor, Mohanlal.
Apart from that, the movie collected a whopping Rs. 50 crore in the process. Going by the progress card of the original, even the makers of the Telugu remake seem to be quite confident about the outcome of the movie.
At a time when previews have become rare, the movie was screened a good two days before release for not just the media but also police officials, since the department has significance in the storyline. The makers are now planning a show for bank officials and their families in a bid to promote the movie exclusively for a family audience.
Though it is early to predict if the movie will flag off Venkatesh’s new innings as a solo hero, what may work in the actor’s favour is the new-found craze for family movies which was seen recently with hits like ‘Manam’ and ‘Atharintiki Dharedhi’.
Boy meets girl… and how!
It’s that time in tinseltown between hits - when a newcomer is cast as a hero and when no effort is spared by the producer in getting a hot-shot director and top-notch heroine, with all the elements of commercial cinema sprinkled very liberally all over the script.
On the face of it, the story is just your typical ‘Boy meets Girl’ stuff. But there the resemblance ends, swears ‘sensational’ director V.V. Vinayak, about ‘Alludu Seenu’, the film for which he’s wielding the megaphone. It has Samantha and producer Bellamkonda Suresh’s son Sai Srinivas in the lead, with Devisri Prasad or ‘DSP’ as he is popular, scoring the music.
‘Alludu Seenu’, presented by Bellamkonda Suresh and produced by Bellamkonda Ganesh on Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Banner, has a lot riding on it. Keen observers say the kind of care that has been taken on it, the kind of money (about Rs. 25 crore, says a birdie) spent on it, reminded them of ‘Kaliyuga Pandavalu’ that introduced Daggupati ‘Victory’ Venkatesh opposite Khushboo in 1986 and ‘Rajakumarudu’ that was Mahesh ‘Prince’ Babu’s debut in tinseltown, cast opposite Preity Zinta in 1999. Interestingly, both the films mentioned got a Nandi!
