150 cr is the new buzz word

Undoubtedly, superstars from Pawan Kalyan to Mahesh Babu, NTR to Prabhas and above all Chiranjeevi are taking T-town budgets to a new high, since the market has expanded in the last few years and also new sources of income have cropped up to reduce the risk on producers. After Mahesh Babu’s ‘Spyder’, a bilingual which was made with more then Rs 110 crore budget, now megastar Chiranjeevi and reigning star Prabhas have pushed the budgets of their upcoming films ‘Sye Ra….’and ‘Sahoo’ to Rs 200 crore and Rs 150 crore respectively. Even soon-to-be released Pawan Kalyan’s ‘Agnathavasi’ has also reportedly crossed the Rs 100 crore mark as it was extensively shot in Europe and other exotic places. “Telugu films have crossed many barriers in terms of collections and branding. With audience across the world waiting to watch Telugu superstars, we have to take up universal themes and shoot them in picturesque locales with big bang action sequences and richly-mounted songs. Hence, we shouldn’t mind spending lavishly, because it is right time to expand Telugu cinema which has been stuck over the years,” says leading producer Bandla Ganesh who claims that even digital rights and in-film branding have reduced the risk factor. “Along with rise in satellite rights, even digital rights and in-film branding are helping the producers to cover their investments,” he adds.

Talking about expanding overseas market from Rs 10 crore to 100 crore, overseas distributor Rajkumar says “It’s not surprising since charisma of Telugu superstars is growing by the day. Telugu films have enough potential but were rarely exploited to the hilt. We should market and promote films a big way, besides releasing the film in virgin overseas locales and also tapping the markets down south and push hard for pan-India collections,” he adds..

Telugu films never had it so good. With advent of Amazon Prime and Netflix, the digital rights of Telugu films have touched Rs 5 to Rs 10 crore mark and had become an additional source of revenue. “Earlier digital rights fetched us Rs 20 to 30 lakh, but now it has shot up 15 to 20 times and allowing producers to earn extra bucks which is substantial and decent. With all these, Telugu film budgets will only rise, until there arises a need to cut it down,” concludes ace producer Bogavalli Prasad.