The Hindu Business Line : Dubbed films give Tollywood a run for its box office money

THE Telugu film industry had pinned hopes on Chiranjeevi-starrer `Jai Chiranjeeva,' released towards the year-end, to bring cheer to an industry that was dominated by dubbed films throughout the year. But the hopes were dashed.

The fact that one-third of the films in a total of 200 releases this year were dubbed films showed how well they were received. Though not all of the dubbed filmswere successful, a good number of them (like Aparichitudu and Gajini) were runaway hits, overshadowing the films of even some top actors like Balakrishna and Venkatesh. One of the major contributors for the poor show was skyrocketing cost of production. "Their budgets do not seem to keep in mind the real market size for Telugu films. They can't compare themselves with their Hindi and Tamil counterparts. They have got global markets. Our films too are accepted outside but they are nowhere when compared to the Hindi and Tamil markets," a storywriter working with a leading filmmaking unit told Business Line.

Commenting on the overall performance of the industry, Mr Tammareddy Bharadwaja, a senior producer said that the films with good themes, dubbed or non-dubbed, went well with the viewers. "One should keep in mind that the cost of production is the key factor," he said.

Mr Aditya, a director belonging to the new genre, said that the decision to bring down prices of cinema tickets didn't do any good to the film industry. "There is no reduction in the cost of production. Yet, they are supposed to be screened in theatres at lower ticket rates," he said.

Almost all the top actors faced drubbing at the box office. The list included Andarivaadu (Chiranjeevi), Allari Pidugu (Balakrishna), Super (Nagarjuna), Balu ABCDEF (Pavankalyan), Subhashchandra Bose (Venkatesh), Political Rowdy (Mohan Babu), Narasimhudu (Junior NTR) and Soggadu (Tarun). Interestingly, the first hit of the year, Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, was directed by the Tamil actor-choreographer Prabhudeva.

The release of Aparichitudu (dubbed version of Tamil film Aniyan) opened the floodgates, with a number of dubbed films, including those of the Tamil stars Vikram and Surya, releasing all over. An interesting feature of the year was the success of low budget films such as `A film by Arvind' and `Anukokunda Oka Roju.' The year also saw the lifting of the 20-year-old `slab system' in cinemas. The Andhra Pradesh Government had issued an order, requiring the exhibitors to pay entertainment tax on the basis of the number of tickets they sold and not on the capacity of the theatres.