stars bet on Remakes for content

While on the one hand, Telugu cinema keeps making tentative moves to break free from its heavily masala-oriented superhero cinema, on the other, its directors constantly keep flirting with remakes from other languages. Of course, there is a double-ended business potential which Tamil cinema has offered for mana producers and directors over the past few decades – one as dubbed ventures and the other as remakes, which has been time-tested and by and large, successful at the BO.

Two such ongoing projects feature the young generation stars who have been known for original commercial flicks in the recent past. Hotshot Varun Tej, who was recently seen in the sci-fi film ‘Antariksham 9000 KMPH’ (which did not do well as expected) is to reprise the Tamilfilm‘Jigarthanda’, the original gangster comedy film having been released in 2014. Karthik Subbaraj is the director who scored a major hit with an effective combination of Siddharth and Bobby Simha in the lead roles. Varun Tej is playing Bobby Simha’s role in the Telugu version. 

Sharwanand, yet another hero who has had a seesawing move to his career, is following suit in the remake route by playing the protagonist in the local version of the Tamil hit ‘96’, a soft, romantic movie with a nostalgic backdrop. He has the gorgeous Samantha as his pair in this film, which is bound to appeal as the Telugu audience loved this genre of films like ‘Premam’, a Malayalam remake which went on to stabilise Naga Chaitanya in Tollywood. Interestingly, the director of ‘96’ is the same who directed it in Tamil, which introduces one more new helmsman into the local celluloid world.

Nikhil Siddharth, another teenybopper, who impressed with a series of fantasy and horror thrillers is taking the hi-tech route by featuring in the remake of ‘ Kanithan’,  titled ‘Mudra.’ He plays a journalist in the film, which is a gripping tale of how an innocent man gets sucked into the world of counterfeiting and cybercrime.

Lavanya Tripathi, who too has taken a backseat in the aftermath of Sai Pallavi and Mehreen Kaur Pirzada emerging as top of the pops is his love interest. With the Sankranthi releases presenting a mixed bag for the Telugu audience, these releases, which are bound to be released over the next few months promise a different kind of a treat for them.