Maruthi’s next is a love story

Filmmaker Maruthi, by his own admission, never expected his recent release ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoy’ to perform the way it did at the turnstile. The rom-com turned out to be one of the biggest grossers of the year, giving him a much-needed push. “When I saw the film at the editing table I believed it would do well. But never did I imagine that it would do the way it did finally.

I’m glad that it broke the typical commercial formula, and its success only proved that a good script backed by an established face will make the audience flock theaters,” he states with a sense of relief. “To amass $ 1.4 million at the US box-office is a no mean achievement, right?”

Didn’t he receive any form of criticism for the film? “Not at all,” he gushes. “There was a section which felt that the climax action block could have been done away with and at the same time there was another section which felt it was required. Personally I felt I could have retained some funny sequences that I’ve chopped off.”

Not surprisingly, star heroes, who were once skeptical about teaming up with him, are now sending feelers. Buzz is that Venkatesh and Naga Chaitanya might star in his next but Maruthi is not in a hurry. “I will do a film with Venky garu for sure. Besides, I’m also in talks with a couple of other heroes,” he insists.

So, what’s keeping him busy of late? “I’m a writing a love story which I’ve recently started,” he shares, hinting that Naga Chaitanya may make the cut to be his next hero. With several Bollywood filmmakers vying for the remake rights of ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoy’, is he interested to direct the Hindi version too?

“I was approached to helm the Hindi version,” but “No, I’m neither familiar with the language nor with the body language of Hindi heroes.” On a concluding note, Maruthi said that his strength lay in comic capers and he is keen to fill the void left by Jandhyala and EVV Satyanarayana.

By Nagaraj Goud