Tollywood scripts success in 2006, finally

After a dull performance for three consecutive years, the Telugu film industry (Tollywood) has finally hit the bull's eye in 2006.

The year 2006 started on a promising note with three films releasing during Sankranti "� the Ram and Ileana-starrer Devdas, dance master-turned-actor Laurance Raghavendra's Style and Venkatesh's Lakshmi. All the three films set the cash registers ringing, grossing over Rs 20 crore each, bringing back the lost smiles to Tollywood.

The industry continued its success run after Sankranti too with the release of the Mahesh Babu-starrer Pokiri on April 28. The film set an all-time record in the history of Tollywood that is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee this year, grossing over Rs 50 crore, and is still going strong.

According to statistics available with the Andhra Pradesh Film Chambers of Commerce, a total of 107 direct and 87 dubbed movies were released till December 22, 2006, around a dozen of them turning into blockbusters.

The year 2006 also turned out to be lucky for Nagarjuna, Ravi Teja, Gopichand and Siddharth, with their films Sri Ramadas, a spiritual movie on Lord Rama's staunch devotee Ramadas, Vikramarkudu that saw Ravi Teja in a dual role for the first time, Ranam and a family entertainer Bommarillu hitting the purple patch.

Even low budget movies like Tenth Class, Sainikudu, Maya Bazaar and Bhagyalakshmi Bumper Draw, a remake of the Hindi blockbuster Malamaal Weekly, turned out to be average grossers. However, a few mega budget movies including Chiranjeevi's Stalin, Nagarjuna's Boss I Love You, Prabhas' Pournami and junior NTR's Rakhee failed to impress.

Attributing the success to fresh stories and even more fresh ways of story-telling, director Chandra Mouli says, "This year, the Telugu directors and producers have shied away from their formulaic, run-of-the-mill storylines and have adopted new concepts. It is this new, positive approach that pulled crowds to the theatres."

With Pawan Kalyan's much-awaited Annavaram scheduled to be released on December 29, and Allu Arjun's Desamuduru, Nitin's Satyam Sivam Sundaram Prabhas' Yogi, among others, lined up for an early January release, will Tollywood take forward its success to 2007? One has to wait and watch.