Success dictates terms in T-town

The likes of Sreenu Vaitla, Harish Shankar and Sukumar fall into the category of directors, who the stars ditched, especially after their latest flick failed to take the box-office by a storm. Hans Talkies explores…

A director delivering industry hits barely matters to our stars as long as his following film fails to emulate the same success if not less. If the film tanks, the chances of the filmmaker directing another top star appears a distant dream. Poor Sreenu Vaitla must have realised this by now. The director, who was all set to team up with Ram Charan up next, is no longer in the race to direct the actor, it is learnt. Reason? The not so impressive show of ‘Aagadu’! Even before the release of ‘Aagadu’, producer DVV Danayya, who shares a great relation with the mega family, signed on Vaitla to direct Charan. It was widely reported that the director was zeroed in as he is considered to be a master at extracting humour from stars. With Charan’s potential yet to be tapped in that genre, Danayya paid a huge sum to Vaitla. But equations change overnight in the industry and who better than Vaitla to know it? When we asked him about his next venture details, all that he said was that it would feature a big hero, clearly hinting that things are no longer in his favour.

Well, Vaitla is not the only director, who has been meted out this treatment. In the recent past, Sukumar too was at the receiving end of a failure. A technically sound director, who happened to deliver the year’s critically acclaimed flick, ‘1: Nenokkadine’, which has clocked impressive ratings for a thriller on IMDB; he was all set to direct NTR. But as fate would have it, the BO performance of ‘1’ had producer BVSN Prasad and NTR keep the project on hold.

Harish Shankar too had to go through this rather uneasy situation. Credited with bringing Pawan Kalyan back into winning ways with ‘Gabbar Singh’, his follow up, ‘Ramayya Vastavayya’, fell short of expectations. It was during the shooting of NTR-starrer that media houses received a press statement, which stated that he would direct Allu Arjun’s next. What happened after ‘RV’ is a no secret. Producer Danayya had to take back the advance amount that he paid to Harish, who has now settled for Sai Dharam Tej. The project may roll out shortly.

Puri Jagannadh, to rewind a bit, too was not an exception. The director received a shock of his life after learning that his wish to direct Chiranjeevi had to wait. The situation popped up after his flick with NTR, ‘Andhrawala’, turned out to be a damp squib. And Puri learnt the lessons the hard way. He was very recently quoted saying: “There are no friends in the industry. Success matters. Even if I deliver a flop with my admirer of years like Ganesh Bandla, he wouldn’t be producing another film with me.”

However, there are others who respect the emotions of directors. Take for instance Nagarjuna. After Vikram Kumar impressed him with the script of ‘Manam’, the actor clearly told him that he would give him a chance to direct it only if he proved a point with ‘Ishq’. The actor’s firm reason to lay down the condition was because ‘Manam’ was a very prestigious project for his family. And boy did Vikram impress him!

Perhaps it’s time that our stars take a cue from their B-town counterparts, who after knowing that a star director has a flop behind him, still give him an opportunity to direct them, keeping in mind their exploits behind the camera. One flop never matters to them. After all a wounded tiger is known to strike back more ferociously, right? The odds were completely stacked against it though producer Ananda Prasad confirmed to the media that he will be releasing Loukyam on septmeber 26.