Veteran producer and secretary of Telugu Film Producers Council, T Prassanna Kumar, firmly says that the recent spurt in box office collections is due to lower ticket rates. “Filmmakers didn’t seek hike and preferred to go with nominal rates and it paid rich dividends,” he says and added, “Affordable prices have brought in openings for first three days to register good numbers and also repeat audience. This all happened because producers avoided ticket hikes,” he adds.
Citing the massive collections for Maa Inti Bangaram, Lenin, Chennai Love Story, DC, Korean Kanakaraju and newly released “Vishwanath & Son’s which have collected over a Rs 90 crore plus share and brought smiles back on exhibitors faces, “These positive vibes are due to good turnout in theatres in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In the last few months, most of producers, distributors and exhibitors made some money,” he points out.
He also attributes to variety of content offered by Telugu and Tamil filmmakers as another reason for audience renewed interest for theatres “Fresh content was definitely a crowd puller and audience patronized naxal based movie, rural love story and urban tragic romance and a comic caper alongwith gangster story and a matured romance which was a good mix up for sure,” he informs.
He says with big releases like Toxic, The Paradise, Adharsha Kutumbam, Irumudi among others lined up for release and would extend this golden period for Tollywood. “I think for another one year, Telugu viewers will be spending more time in theatres and give exhibitors more money and reason to celebrate after dull period a few months ago”, he concludes.