Telugu cinema’s lucky streak continued as 2006 turned out to be an above average year with more than a dozen films making money on their investment. Expanding business territories, record breaking films, new stars and directors, piracy slowing down – are some of the best things that happened this year.
Tamil dubbed films failed miserably at box-office unlike in 2005, although the inflow of dubbed films boomed. The trend was peppy youth movies with good music and stylish presentation that worked wonders at the box-office, while formulaic action films of superstars bombed miserably. Telugu cinema also found a huge market in the cities of Chennai, Bangalore and overseas in North America and Canada.
Hits…
Pokiri the summer release of 2006 not only went on to become highest grosser ever in Telugu film history but also catapulted hero Mahesh Babu to superstardom. Pokiri collected nearly Rs 40 Crores and ran for 175 days in about 60 centers, a record in Tollywood. Ileana became the hot & happening girl with this film.
The other blockbusters are Venkatesh starrer Lakshmi, Ileana’s maiden film Devadasu, critically acclaimed Bommarillu and Nagarjuna’s devotional film Sri Ramadasu - all collected more than Rs 18 Crores and enjoyed long run.
Ravi Teja’s Vikramarkudu and the comedy caper Andala Ramudu were the other successful and profitable films of 2006. Style was appreciated for Lawrence’s directorial qualities but in the end it could not bring rich dividends. Nevertheless it can be termed as a decent hit. Films that broke even financially were – Godavari, Ranam, Stalin, Samanyudu and Bhagyalakshmi Bumper Draw.
There were some surprise hits too – Pandem Kodi (dubbed Tamil film) was a hit.
Misses..
It was not a rosy picture for some of the biggies. Siddardha’s Chukkallo Chandrudu, Ram Gopal Varma produced Shock, Aasadhyudu, Balakrishna’s Veerabhadra, Pawan Kalyan’s Bangaram, Mahesh Babu’s Sainikudu, Prabhas Pournami and Ravi Teja’s Khatarnak were duds for which distributors and producers lost heavily.
NTR’s Rakhi has taken a good opening and Pawan’s Annavaram (releasing on Dec 29th) will be the last release of the year carries good reports.
The views expressed in the article are the author's and not of Sify.com.
Share | 
Print | Rate 
