Tollywood’s love’s labour’s lost

In a worrisome development for many a filmmaker, love stories are miserably failing at the box office for the past few months

Hyderabad: As far as tinsel town is concerned, love stories are passé, it seems. The mightiest thread of all classic films eternal love and enchanting romance seem to be losing its sheen if dwindling collections of such films in the box office is any indication.

No doubt, youthful love stories (even though portrayed by 50-plus heroes and teenaged heroines) drew in big crowds for long, but for the past few months, the trend is on the wane, apparently sending wrong signal to many a producers who are pinning hopes on their upcoming films.

Interestingly, more than 30 films based on love stories are in different stages of production in T-town. Barring romantic entertainer ‘Nenu Sailaja’ and ‘Express Raja’, most of the youthful romantic comedies like Speedunnodu, Lacchimi Deviki O Lekkundi, Nenu Rowdy Ne, Seethamma Andalu Ramayya Sitralu and even much-hyped Krishna Gadi Veera Prema Gatha, (drew good openings, but later fizzled out) failed to connect with viewers.

Even ‘Padesave’ a film personally promoted by none other than Nagarjuna, sank without trail due to stale storyline, causing huge loss to its producers. “It’s surely a worrying trend,” admits director Madhura Sreedhar, who blames it on mixing up of genres.

“Unlike Tamil directors Manirathnam or Gautam Menon who make straight love stories, our Telugu filmmakers try to mix comedy, action and other elements, diluting the soul of the love story and thus the hotchpotch outcome receives poor response,” says Madhura, who describes his next production Oka Manasu, ‘a perfect romantic tale’.

The downslide seems to have affected director Teja who minted money with love stories like ‘Nuvvu Nenu’ and ‘Jayam’. He also appears to be also moving away from the genre and making an action adventure ‘Aham’.

“I always tried to make different kind of movies, so don’t tag me to love stories alone. Since my next film ‘Aham’ is about how human beings perish due to ego,” says Teja. “Love will be flourishing in real life as well as reel life all the time.

So, it’s just a temporary setback. I do agree that some love stories failed to work, because they lacked ‘emotional quotient’ which is necessary to connect with larger section of viewers. We can successfully remake Romeo and Juliet now by giving it a trendy tweak,” he concludes.