Ram Gopal Varma recently criticised the Telugu film industry, suggesting that Telugu actors are hesitant to collaborate with corporate entities because their personal preferences and desires are often overlooked.
Renowned for his often controversial comments, Ram Gopal Varma has once again stirred the pot in the Telugu film industry. He recently asserted that Tollywood’s triumphs hinge on the inflated egos of top-ranking actors, putting considerable financial pressure on producers and breeding discontent among buyers. He added to the drama by suggesting a prominent Telugu actor pumped money into his failing film, just to keep it on the big screen, despite it hemorrhaging profits.
In a recent conversation with Gallata Plus, Ram Gopal Varma expressed his views that the concept of independent producers has vanished in both Hollywood and Bollywood, but it remains alive in Tollywood. He said, “Individual producers don’t exist anymore. Maybe in South, there are a few, but when you look at Bombay, there are no individual producers. In Hollywood, I can’t even recall a name. Individual producers in Bombay make a pre-deal with the corporate (sic).”
He further adds, “In Telugu industry, individual producers still exist because it runs on heroes’ egos. The heroes don’t like the corporate. Because corporate are employs. They don’t cater to whims and fancies. They only cater to the agreement (sic).”
The director behind Sarkar backed up his point by saying, “To give you an example, a corporate company from Bombay did a big film with a Telugu star. The film, after a point of time came to deficit, the corporate company wanted to remove it. Now, the star’s fans thought it will be an insult to their star if the film doesn’t run for certain number of days. So, now, the star called the head of the corporate and said, ‘I will use my own money, but you will have to run it for until so and so time’. As long as the hero is spending the money, the corporate has nothing to lose. What went wrong her is this wasn’t communicated to the distributor so the distributors stopped putting ads in the newspapers because that’s an extra cost to bear and he wasn’t paid for it, especially after the film came to a deficit (sic).”
Ram Gopal Varma pointed out that the stiff professionalism seen in corporate firms is a buzzkill for Telugu movie stars. Instead of creating their own movies, these corporations are now just purchasing them. It leaves the actual film producers grappling with enormous budgets, trying to make ends meet from selling their movies at skyrocketing prices. In turn, buyers also find themselves in a tough spot. Ram Gopal Varma notes that this trend is peculiar only to the Telugu film world. He mentioned that he has not witnessed similar incidents in Bollywood, where buyers do not confront producers demanding a change of behaviour.
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