New rules land dream merchants in soup

A 14-member producer panel decides to promote new Telugu films only on two channels

• New releases to be promoted only on TV9, NTV
• Ok Bangaram and Dochey open to poor collections
• Producers who invested over 300 crore in big films are a worried lot
• Filmmakers hope the new committee will be nullified

Hyderabad: Even though Telugu Film Producers’ Council, with its 800-odd members, has disowned the regulations made by a 14-member panel under the stewardship of Dil Raju and others to promote Telugu films in just two channels - TV9/TV1 and NTV/Vanitha – barring about 25 other Telugu channels have badly affected collections of two new releases, Ok Bangaram and Dochay.

“These two films got released after the new regulations have been imposed by the newly-formed panel and it affected the opening collections of two new films last week. A star like Naga Chaitanya, couldn’t spin box office magic with Dochay and even legendary filmmaker like Manirathnam couldn’t draw huge openings for Ok Bangaram. These regulations of promoting films only through two channels TV9 and NTV proved to be detrimental for new films,” says producer C N Rao.

Unhappy with it, actor-producers Nagarjuna and Bandla Ganesh openly declared that they were not associated with the newly-formed outfit and even producer C Kalyan also disassociated with it and wants to counsel his colleagues. Hundreds of other producers are fuming since a few individuals are deciding their promotional strategy.

“Allu Arvind and Suresh Babu will also distance themselves from the panel since they know that only Producers’ Council or Film Chamber are legitimate bodies to address issues of producers and not a hand-picked panel of 14 members.

This body will just fizzle out since drop in collections will affect not only producers but also exhibitors, distributors and push our industry to the brink,” warns Nattikumar, former chairman of Producers’ Council of Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce. After Nagarjuna, stars like Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu, Balakrishna, Jr NTR, Kalyan Ram and Ravi Teja are reluctant to endorse this new body, since they know that the producers’ guild is the legitimate body in Tollywood.

“Most of the superstars have not acknowledged it, so I challenge Dil Raju garu or any other panel members to get one superstar to endorse their panel but it is just impossible since they know Producers Guild is the ultimate body to take decisions,” says Nattikumar who is demanding the resignation of all the 14-members from the posts of council and then form a private body.

Nattikumar expressed concern over Rs 300 crore investments put in big budget films like Lion (Rs 40 crore), Baahubali (Rs 100 crore) Rudramma Devi (Rs 50 crore), Srimanthudu (Rs 50 crore) and Kick-2 (Rs 40-crore). “They will have to just promote in restricted manner which will affect the openings of those films.

Producers of these big films are fuming since they have pumped huge money and it is like a ‘life and death’ situation for the producers. We are sure that the panel will go into oblivion since Producers Council has already rejected the idea of a parallel body,” adds Natti. When contacted, Prasanna Kumar, general secretary, Telugu Film Producers’ Council admitted that the idea to float this 14-member panel was dismissed by the executive committee meeting.

“It is true that when this topic came for discussion at the executive committee meeting of Producers’ Council, majority of members felt that floating a new panel was not feasible and declined the idea. Producers council has nothing to do with the decisions of new outfit and a few producers have already broken it and are giving advertisements as they wish,” he said.

By BVS Prakash