Nagarjuna on South Cinema’s Rise Over Bollywood

Nagarjuna Akkineni is credited as someone who introduced a lot of directors to the film industry. He is currently busy with Kuberaa promotions and locked a new director for his 100th film. Interestingly, when asked about the industry’s downfall and the domination of South cinema over Bollywood, Nagarjuna shared a practical opinion.

In short, everyone in the Telugu cinema currently feels that people are not coming to theatres and the OTT platforms are killing the revenues. There is also another opinion that good films are not being made while everyone acknowledges that South cinema is flourishing when compared to Bollywood. In this context, Nagarjuna thinks that it is pretty natural to face such circumstances.

“It is pretty common and these things keep happening. It is not right to think that the industry is not doing well if an actor or a director is not having success for five to six years. The reality is that the expectations of audiences keep changing from time to time. Tourist Family, Court and Anaganaga won the hearts of audiences of late. More films must come keeping the taste of audiences in mind,” said Nagarjuna.

Whatever Nagarjuna makes sense because today, many star heroes and directors are struggling for success. While all those who scored hits took a lot of time in achieving it, a lot of relatively small films, especially on OTT are gaining the acceptance of audiences. Most of the people are ignoring these facts and continue to project that the industry is not doing well and people are not coming to theatres.

Nagaruna rightly pointed out that the taste of audiences is changing and it is the responsibility of the filmmakers to make movies keeping it in mind. He was also not sure of what to do after finishing Na Saami Ranga. Luckily, he accepted Kubera and Coolie on which he pinned a lot of hopes.

Both as an actor and a producer, Nagarjuna has a fair understanding of where the cinema is heading and without many complaints, he seems to be clear on what he needs to do and what is also expected of him. If the same realisation hits the majority of the stakeholders in Tollywood, we can expect good cinema ruling the world.