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Laila Bombs at Premieres

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Vishwak Sen’s Laila has created a lot of controversies with movie content, Prithviraj’s comments at the pre-release event. These controversies, however, did not help the film to create a minimum buzz and it had very poor advance bookings. With the #BoycottLaila trend before the release, the team is facing a big risk and the film’s weak content has impacted the action-comedy film.

And to make things even worse, the film opened to a unanimous disaster response from overseas premiers. The audience are calling the film unbearable to watch. The film opened to poor reviews here as well.

We need to see whether the film can get better talk from Indian audiences. If it garners the same response from the Indian audience, then it will certainly be the career biggest disaster for Vishwak Sen.

Directed by Ram Narayan, Laila also stars Akanksha Sharma, Vennela Kishore, Brahmaji, Prithviraj and Harshavardhan in key roles. Sahoo Garapati has bankrolled the project under Shine Screens banner.

Laila Movie Review: Miserable Mixture of Masala

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Movie Name: Laila
Rating: 1.5/5
Cast: Vishwak Sen, Akanksha Sharma, Abhimanyu Singh, Babloo Prithivraj and others
Director: Ram Narayan
Produced By: Sahu Garapati
Release Date: 14th February 2025

Story:

The story of ‘Laila‘ revolves around Sonu (Vishwak Sen), who operates a women’s beauty parlor that holds deep emotional significance related to his mother. He gets into significant trouble, endangering the parlor and his good name. To deal with the crisis, he takes on the identity of a woman named Laila, and tries to prove his innocence. The rest of the story is how Sonu/Laila is able to achieve his goal.

Performances:

Vishwak Sen’s character has two different shades in the film. One is Sonu, which is his usual hyper-energetic role, and another one is Laila, in which he dons a woman getup. Vishwak remains innocent of wrongdoing and seeks to excel, but the limitations in his writing stop him from creating the impact.

Through her skin show, Akanksha Sharma successfully adds a glamorous element to the film. Aside from that, her character doesn’t leave much of an impression. Babloo Prithiveeraj was usual, while Abhimanyu Singh gets good screen time as a comedy villain and makes some moments’ work with his performance. Vineet Kumar, Kamakshi Bhaskarla, Prithvi and others were okay.

Analysis:

Vishwak Sen’s Laila is directed by Ram Narayan. The film’s storyline might look interesting, but it needed a fresh presentation and a lead character design that holds the entertainment and emotions perfectly. Laila presents outdated concepts and lacks execution, though a few enjoyable scenes with Abhimanyu Singh’s character stand out. One will expect some new or intriguing moments when an energetic hero like Vishwak Sen plays the female character Laila. However, the director falls short in delivering a scene or moment that captures attention. It’s completely fine to produce an ‘A’ rated movie, but the plot and developments must be convincing. The occasional vulgar/cheap dialogues derail the film’s impact.

Positives:

  • Few Comedy Scenes

Negatives:

  • Poor Handling of Laila Character
  • Absurd Dialogues
  • Outdated Twists/Scenes
  • Music

Laila Movie Review and Verdict:

Laila stands as a miserable mixture of masala elements. Except for a few comedy scenes, The film fails to impress… Vishwak Sen’s efforts gone in vain.

Thandel Movie Collection: 1st Week

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Naga Chaitanya’s Thandel has collected around 73 Cr gross and 40 Cr share worldwide in its first week. It is his career-biggest first week and has already emerged as his all-time biggest lifetime collection. The movie has achieved the breakeven mark worldwide, and most of the individual territories have also achieved the breakeven figures or are closer to them.

The situation is quite the opposite in the overseas market where the film has failed to achieve the breakeven mark and a big 2nd weekend is needed so that Thandel can end up as an average venture.

Thandel Fails to Impress in Hindi And Tamil:

Thandel has been made as a pan-India film and the team visited Chennai and Mumbai for promotions and expected some decent numbers. Unfortunately, the film did not make any numbers in both languages which has disappointed the makers.

The Tamil and Hindi versions only helped the makers to get good non-the-tarical deals such as a big OTT deal with Netflix which has reportedly covered 1/3 rd of the budget. But theatrically, the Hindi and Tamil versions have not brought any numbers.

Can Thandel Hit 100 Cr ?

All eyes are now on the big Valentine’s Day weekend. This Naga Chaitanya-Sai Pallavi starrer needs a big push this weekend and should target at least a 15 Cr weekend to go 90 Cr range. If that happens, then inching towards the Rs 100 crore mark by the end of its run would be made easy. It all depends on how well it performs in the next 3 days.

Marco uncut version on OTT? Producer clarifies

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The Malayalam film, Marco starring Unni Mukundan became a big success recently. The film depicted a high level of violence and action episodes which have trended like anything on social media platforms. Likewise, the film also saw a popularity in other language audiences prompting its success there as well. When netizens came to know that an uncut version of the film will be out on the OTT streaming they were excited to the core.

But the film’s producer, Shareef Muhammed, has clarified openly that the plan of bringing an uncut version to the OTT platform has been dropped. He cited the guidelines set by the Ministry of Broadcasting, which took cognizance of the reporting about the violent scenes of the film. He also assured that they as a team are excited to bring Marco to a wider audience through the OTT platform, Sony LIV.

As said, netizens wished to see scenes that didn’t make it to the theatrical version expecting an even larger quota of violent experience. But sadly they are only left with what they saw in the theatrical version. Marco, ironically achieved popularity throughout the country for the very reason of these violent scenes. Marco will be streaming on SonyLIV from February 14th i.e., today.

Vidaamuyarchi: A Big Disaster

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Vidaamuyarchi, the latest action thriller starring Ajith Kumar was released in theaters on February 6, 2025. The film was released in theaters after facing many issues, but it saw a crash in its numbers after the first weekend. Vidaamuyarchi is a big disaster at the box office.

As said above, the film crashed on weekdays in the 1st week and ended up with 130 Cr gross worldwide, and the film is likely to close its theatrical run this weekend itself. Vidaamuyarchi is a big disaster at the box office, as it is likely to close around 150 Cr gross which is way less than Ajith’s recent film Thunivu.

Vidaamuyarchi: Another Loss for Lyca Productions

Lyca Productions faced another cost failure with Vidaamuyarchi and as mentioned above, the film faced many issues before release, which led to the postponement of theatrical release, and the makers also encountered legal obstacles. After all the problems, they are finally ending up with the losses.

Starring Ajith Kumar, Trisha, Arjun, and Regina Cassandra in crucial roles, Magizh Thirumeni’s Vidaamuyarchi was released in theatres on February 6, 2025. It is a remake of the 1997 American film Breakdown.

Shankar To Direct Dhruv Vikram

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Shankar, an acclaimed film director recognized for his great cinematic vision, is confronting one of his most difficult tasks ever. Back-to-back setbacks with ‘Indian 2’ and ‘Game Changer’ have put him in a tough position, limiting his ability to secure producers for large-scale projects. While ‘Game Changer’ was supposed to be a game changer for him, its terrible box office performance has caused him to reconsider his future ventures.

Shankar had big plans, like finishing ‘Indian 3’ and launching the multipart ‘Velpari’ with a star-studded cast. After the failure of ‘Game Changer’, the possibilities of accomplishing such large-budget projects have decreased. According to industry sources, in order to make a comeback, he may need to shift his focus to smaller-scale projects.

In the midst of this uncertainty, actor Vikram reportedly approached Shankar with an intriguing proposal: direct a film starring his son, Dhruv Vikram. Dhruv, who made his debut with ‘Adithya Varma’, is still looking for a big box office hit. With Vikram actively monitoring his son’s career, this alliance could be a smart move to help Dhruv advance in the profession.

Currently, Dhruv is set to work with ‘Karnan’ director Mari Selvaraj for his next project. If Shankar gives the nod to this venture, it is expected to be a relatively small-budget film with a quicker production timeline, marking a new phase in the filmmaker’s career.

Kamal Haasan Nominated for Rajya Sabha

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Actor Kamal Haasan is set to become a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) decided to nominate him from its quota to the Upper House. Today, Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin visited Haasan at his home to offer his congratulations following the announcement. The fans of Ulaganayagan are sharing this news happily on social media, as they got to know that Kamal Haasan has been nominated for Rajya Sabha.

Udhayanidhi meets Kamal Haasan

Udhayanidhi later shared a message on X (Twitter), stating that he met the leader of the Makkal Needhi Maiyam – Kalaignani Kamal Haasan sir at his residence today as a courtesy. He expressed his love and gratitude to Kamal sir for welcoming him warmly and exchanging views on various fields such as politics and arts. Some rumors say that nominating Kamal Haasan for Raya Sabha was a part of the political alliance of DMK and MNM.

Senior DMK leader and Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, PK Sekar Babu, met Kamal at his Alwarpet office on Wednesday. The official social media account of Haasan’s party Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) later shared images from the meeting on social media, calling it a courtesy visit. On March 9, 2024, Kamal Haasan visited the DMK headquarters, Anna Arivalayam, where he signed an agreement with DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin.

Back then, the actor and politician had clarified that his decision to support the DMK-led bloc was driven by national interest rather than personal political gains. However, his decision has disappointed his fans who believed him to be a game-changer in politics. 

Good Bad Ugly: A Loss for Producers?

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After his recent release Vidaamuyarchi, Kollywood star Ajith will next be seen in Adhik Ravichandran’s Good Bad Ugly. Despite starring an A-lister like Ajith, the film’s trade and pre-release situation caused some anxious moments for the trade involved.

Normally in star hero films, the producers find themselves in a comfortable situation with just pre-release business. The table profit itself can put the producers in a no-loss position unless the budget goes a bit overboard. In such cases, if the movie fails theatrically, then it will be a double loss for producers and we saw a recent example of the same with Game Changer.

According to Tamil media reports, Good Bad Ugly’s budget is close to 300 Cr and the main reason for this is the massive remuneration of Rs 150 crores that Ajith has received.

Recovering 300 Cr with all rights is not possible as the return on investment and overseas business of Ajith’s films are in a dull phase because of his recent failures. Adding to this, Ajith doesn’t have a strong market in Telugu. Due to these reasons, the producers of Good Bad Ugly are forced to go with some deficit release.

If the movie performs well and posts good numbers, then it will be terrific news for all. But if it doesn’t then the makers will have some trouble-filled times to face. Ajith’s latest film Vidaamuyarchi also failed at box office which will also add some impact on Good Bad Ugly business.

The big positive sign for the film is that Good Bad Ugly is a proper commercial film with good hype already. Ajith needs to make a strong comeback with this film to ensure his market stays intact and Mythri Movie Makers ear profits.

Thandel Crosses Million Mark In Book My Show

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Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi starrer Thandel has now achieved another major milestone. The romantic action thriller directed by Chandoo Mondeti has managed to sell more than 1 million tickets on Book My Show so far.

Released last week, the film collected Rs 31.06 crores on its first weekend and also received a thumbs up from a majority of audience. With the worldwide theatrical rights valued at ₹40 crore, ‘Thandel’ is now on its way to become Naga Chaitanya’s biggest grosser.

Thandel Box-Office Performance

Thandel has now become Naga Chaitanya’s biggest grosser in 1st week. The film has collected around 70 Cr till now and Valentine’s Day weekend hold will play a key role in deciding whether the film joins 100 Cr club. The film has performed well in India but the overseas business has been disappointing.

Directed by Chandoo Mondeti, Thandel is based on true events, focusing on a fisherman named Thandel Raju (played by Chaitanya) who, along with his fellow fishermen, loses his way at sea and accidentally drifts into Pakistani waters, resulting in their capture and imprisonment in a Pakistani jail.


People Media’s International Project Announced

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The renowned production house People Media Factory is gearing up for its 50th film. The banner is looking to enter the global range with this film. People Media’s International Project has been announced.

The PMF unit is moving ahead under the leadership of young producer Krithi Prasad, and the 50th film of their banner will be directed by talented director Hasan. The People Media Factory team met Telangana State Cinematography Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy for preliminary discussions regarding the film. People Media’s International Project has been announced.

PMF 50 – A Global Project

People Media Factory is bringing its 50th film (PMF50) as a global production, and it is a big achievement in the film industry. The production house’s representatives discussed the project with Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and explained the global cinematic vision. During these discussions, the People Media Factory team shared their global strategies with the minister. 

https://twitter.com/peoplemediafcy/status/1889959165088743646

People Media Factory producer Krithi Prasad, director Hasan, and other key team members were present at the meeting. Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy expressed happiness over the global entry of People Media Factory. He assured that the Telangana state government will provide all possible assistance. The minister said Telugu cinema will get more recognition at the global level.

People Media Factory (PMF) is a production house that has provided many super hit films to the audience. The production house is currently making ‘The Raja Saab’ with Prabhas as the lead. Also, films like Mirai and Gudachari 2 are in the pipeline. Now that the 50th film has been announced as PMF50 global production, the excitement in the industry has increased around this big film. The makers will soon provide clarity on more interesting details related to the project.