The huge success of "Baahubali: The Beginning", "Kumari 21F" and some other 2015 Telugu releases have proved content has once again trumped star power in this year.
Tollywood has produced over 150 movies in 2015, but around 15 have turned out of to be big money-spinners across the globe. Most of these hits were script-oriented films, and the star power had the least to contribute to their success. Some movies featuring popular stars bombed at the box office due to bad scripting or poor content.
SS Rajamouli's "Baahubali: The Beginning" has enlightened Indian filmmakers on the potential of the market. With its Hindi version garnering more than Rs 100 crore, the Prabhas and Rana Daggubati-starrer has showed if a film has a good content, its dubbed versions will also be a big money-spinner. Having collected more than Rs 600 crore, the film has also introduced new strategies of marketing promotion.
"Srimanthudu" is another Tollywood blockbuster of the year. Though it featured Superstar Mahesh Babu in the lead, its success mainly stems from the Koratala-written story with a brilliant message to society. The movie has grossed Rs 200 crore at the worldwide box office.
"Rudhramadevi" and "Kanche" may not have been as big hits as "Baahubali" and "Srimanthudu", but the response to them shows how the audience encourage a film with unique, interesting content. Both movies have entered the list of critically and commercially hit Telugu films of 2015.
Small-budget Telugu movies like "Bhale Bhale Magadivoy", "Raju Gari Gadhi", "Cinema Choopista Maava" and "Kumari 21 F" have done superb business at the box office, fetching huge profits to both their producers and distributors. Good content has been key to their success.
Surprisingly, some dubbed Telugu movies like "Ganga" (Kanchana 2), "Raghuvaran BTech", "Fast and Furious 7" and "Jurassic World" have also become superhits. Their success also bears testimony to the fact that good content triumphs over star power.
Ram Charan's "Bruce Lee: The Fighter" and Akhil Akkineni's "Akhil: The Power of Jua" were highly-promoted big-ticket Telugu movies of the year. But they were big disasters at the box office and bad scripting was the reason behind their failure.
