Divas testing luck at ticket windows

After not-so-impressive 'U Turn', glam diva Samantha will be testing her popularity once again at ticket windows in two Telugu states with her upcoming film being directed by Nandini Reddy which is getting ready for release.

Touted to be the remake of Korean film 'Miss Granny', the wife of Naga Chaitanya has to draw in crowds to prove a point.

"U Turn' was a colossal flop, despite Samantha's decent performance, due to a cliched plot.

Hence, she will be pinning hopes on her next to show that she is a star material," says distributor Vishnumurthy, who feels that acting with top stars and doing women-centric movies are two different things.

"Samantha, Kajal and Tamannaah reached the top by doing films with superstars like Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan, Jr NTR and Prabhas but pulling in crowds all alone is a daunting task," he adds.

Nonetheless, Samantha is trekking her own path after marriage and experimenting with roles like playing a ghost in 'Raju Gari Gadi 2', while Kajal and Tammanah are doing the remake of Hindi film 'Queen' to re-define their careers and become new-age crowd pullers.

"Actually, Kajal and Tamannaah are tactfully mixing up star films with women-centric movies without risking their careers.

If they are able to pull off solo hits, fine, otherwise they can fall back on male stars to keep their stocks intact," adds producer Suresh Babu.

"Only Anuskha and Nayantara were able to gain a fan following on their own and able to draw crowds, but other glam girls are yet to reach that enviable position. Nothing wrong with divas giving it a shot once-in-a-while," adds Babu.

Earlier, Tapsee (Anando Brahma), Anjali (Geetanjali), Poorna (Avunu), tasted success at the box office with 'horror' flicks but not in the reckoning anymore.

"Once an actress takes up a lady-oriented film, filmmakers shy away from signing her as female lead in a hero-centric film.

Eventually, the careers of few actresses took a beating.

For instance, Charmee and Priyamani lost their ratings after their solo-heroine films bombed.

Sometimes, it's like taking a road with dead-end," concludes writer Gopi Mohan.