After a hiatus, multi-starrers back in vogue

First things first, kudos to gen next actors Sundeep Kishan, Nara Rohit, Sudheer Babu and Aadi for reviving the multi-hero trend in T-town with ‘Samanthakamani’ which opened to good reviews and collections as well. After seasoned star Venkatesh shared screen space with

Equally, director Sriram Aditthya deserves a pat for convincing four heroes to share screen space for his gripping thriller revolving around a vintage car and inadvertently revived the fading genre. “A perfect multi-starrer is the one which gives equal footage and significance to each actor and `Samanthakamani’ fits the bill.

In fact, actors Sundeep, Sudheer, Aadi and Nara Rohit need to take the credit for bringing back the trend and didn’t mind sharing screen time with co-stars. Even ‘Bahubali’ franchise’ brought big star Prabhas and rising star Rana together and gave the phenomenon a big momentum and we can expect more combos,” says director Gunasekar.

Interestingly, multi-starrers were a rage in T-town from 1950-80’s as legendary actors like NTR, ANR, Krishna, Sobhan Babu, Kanta Rao and others shared screen space and delivered many blockbusters. “Those were true-blue multi-starrers since each of them was a big star on his own name, but still came together for mythologicals, folklore and social dramas.

Memorable hits like ‘Mayabazar’ and ‘Gundemma Katha’ vouch for it. While arch rivals NTR and Krishna worked in `Devuduchesina Manushulu’, followed by Krishna-Sobhan Babu in ‘Mundadugu’ and kept the genre alive and kicking for many many years. With fans of both stars turning up, producers and distributors minted money.

Any day multi-starrers are a safe bet, provided they get a right script,” adds producer Vallabaneni Ashok Despite such a demand, their predecessors-Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, Nagarjuna and Venkatesh- shunned the genre and preferred to do solo hero projects.

“May be, they wanted to keep their fan following and rivalry intact. Besides Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna were doing mass-oriented films, while Nagarjuna and Venkatesh dished out love stories and family dramas, so finding a suitable script would have been difficult task.

Nevertheless, Venkatesh began to work with younger stars like Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan to sustain the trend,” adds director Samudra With another film ‘Nakshatram’ featuring Sundeep Kishan and Sai Dharam Tej set to hit screens very soon, the trend seems to be on upswing.

“These rising stars have their own careers to chalk out, although producers may try to bring them together for their benefit, but they should pick the right ones or else it will dent their invidividual careers’. says director Meher Ramesh.

By BVS Prakash