Tollywood superstars ready to play Lord Rama, Krishna?

Close on the heels of ace director SS Rajamouli disclosing his long-time dream to make ‘Mahabharat’, leading producer Allu Arvind announced to make a mythological film `Ramayana’ with a Rs 500-crore budget in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi languages.

“Ramayana is my dream project and the epic will be made in 3D to offer viewers a visual-spectacle,” says Allu Arvind. But the most important point is, who among Telugu superstars would be ready to essay mythological roles of Lord Rama, Krishna and Arjuna since without a saleable star, transforming epic stories on big screen will be a risky proposition.

Among the seasoned stars only Balakrishna has donned the roles of Lord Krishna and Arjuna in ‘Srikrishnarjuna Vijayam’ in 1996 and followed by Jr NTR as a kid essaying the role of Lord Rama in ‘Bala Ramayanam’ and much-recently reigning star Pawan Kalyan appeared in a cameo as Lord Krishna in ‘Gopala Gopala’.

“Few new-age stars will be reluctant to don mythological roles, since it’s difficult to carry such larger-than-life roles since such roles demand charisma and stature,” says producer Vishnuvardhan Reddy.

Whereas, most of the yesteryear superstars like NTR, ANR, Krishna, Kanta Rao, Shobhan Babu, and SV Ranga Rao made Tollywood the torch-bearer of mythological movies and delivered memorable films like ‘Mayabazar’, ‘Narthanasala’, ‘Sampoorna Ramayanam’, ‘Pandavavanavasam’ and ‘Sri Krishna Pandaveeyam”, etc.

“Legendary NTR stood like colossus among this contemporaries and attained a demi-god status with his endearing performance as Lord Krishna, Rama and even his acclaimed peers like ANR, Krishna, SVR and Kanta Rao kept the genre alive and kicking,” adds producer Kommineni Venkateswar Rao.

Nevertheless, how far the Gen X stars like Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Ram Charan, Allu Arjun will show interest to go in for a complete makeover against their established trendy and stylish avatars. “Godly roles demand lot of commitment and passion and time-consuming too.

These stars have attained a particular image and breaking away from it, will be a big challenge,’ concludes Prakash Reddy.