Dil Raju has risen from nowhere to become one of the strong producers in Tollywood. Landing up in film distribution with a limited budget, he worked his way through many struggles and strong decision making to be where he is today. He has delivered massive hits and blockbusters with leading heroes in the last two decades. It is heartening to see how he has really struggled recently. After making his mark in Tollywood, Dil Raju entered Kollywood this year.
His debut as a producer in Tamil Industry was in the form of ‘Varisu’. Tamil Star Ilayathalapathy Vijay is the hero and Rashmika Mandanna plays the leading lady. Vamsi Paidipally directed this film with tunes composed by Thaman. In order to establish himself strongly in Kollywood, Dil Raju reportedly didn’t even hesitate to pay about 100 crores to Vijay as remuneration. The film released as a Pongal treat on January 11th.
The film won the hearts of Tamil audience although there is a mixed talk still about the story and screenplay. The mass elevations have done wonders and the film is doing very well at the box office. In Tollywood, the film is releasing as Varasudu with a delay of three days. However, the grapevine is that Vijay flatly refused to attend the promotions of the Telugu version.
We have seen many Tamil heroes right from Suriya to Vikram and even Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth who are always more than eager to reach out to Telugu audiences to make their film work here, since they respect the fan following among Telugu film lovers. Sources say that despite repeated requests, Vijay didn’t agree for Telugu promotions. Hence, Dil Raju continued promotions with the rest of the stars.
This is one reason why he couldn’t create the buzz at the required level for this Sankranthi release. On one hand, due to aggressive promotions, Valteru Veerayya and Veerasimha Reddy are doing well at the box office despite being formula films with no unique point except star and mass elevations. However, Dil Raju seems to have lagged behind this Sankranti despite putting a lot of effort into making Varasudu click well.
Even for the release, Dil Raju had to fight a battle with the rest of Telugu industry since it was a dubbed film. In the process, he even earned criticism but finally that doesn’t seem to have paid off for this ace producer.
