Mahesh movies mired in a mess

He is the reigning Superstar of Tollywood and no wonder his moves are always under constant media scrutiny. Little would he have guessed that his upcoming movies would be in the news for all the wrong reasons! We are indeed speaking about Mahesh Babu and his future assignments. While his under production film ‘Aagadu’ was the first film to have kicked off a storm, his untitled projects with Koratala Siva and Mani Ratnam too attracted a lot of attention.

To begin with, it was Prakash Raj’s reported face-off with Sreenu Vaitla’s assistant that made ‘Aagadu’ hit the headlines early April. While the issue was at its nascent stages, another shocker surfaced. UTV Movies, which was to produce Mahesh’s film with Koratala Siva, was shown the door. The reason cited: the actor was unhappy with the terms and conditions imposed by the premium production house of B-town. Around this time, Prakash Raj’s episode snowballed into a bigger one, only for the actor to hold a presser and put forward his version.

As Prakash’s episode was being discussed in the Film Chamber, Mahesh, who always dreamt of working with Mani Ratnam, his favourite filmmaker, has decided to opt out of the maker’s actioner. Unconfirmed reports pointed out that the actor expressed his apprehensions over the script which was on the lines of his critically-acclaimed Sankranthi release ‘1: Nenokkadine’.

A source says, “High stakes are involved with Mahesh’s films. He is at a phase where he can’t afford to take a risk, especially after the way ‘1: Nenokkadine’ fared at the box-office. With Pawan Kalyan emerging as the undisputed king of Tollywood with ‘Attarintiki Daaredhi’, the performance of Mahesh’s forthcoming films will decide the face of the Telugu film industry at the national level. Although Brand Mahesh is still going strong, box-office numbers hold the key for the actor.”

Now with Prakash Raj’s issue settled amicably, we hope that the actor’s next endeavours would be in the news for all the right reasons. What say?