Perhaps for the first time in its 101-year-old history, the Telugu film industry is in a self-imposed lockdown. Shoots have been stopped, stalling at least 80 to 100 movies. And this at a time when many Telugu films have taken the country by storm, leaving behind even the big guns of Bollywood.

The producers of the third largest number of films in the country after Hindi and Tamil say their pan-India image raking in the moolah is a magnified myth. To the extent that the entire film industry decided to suspend film shoots from August 1 with the aim of making corrections.

The biggest issue is high production costs and low revenues. A section of the producers blames expensive stars for the quagmire. For every ‘Baahubali’ and ‘RRR’ and ‘Pushpa: The Rise - Part 01’ that gave Tollywood a larger-than-life image, there are multiple films that lose hundreds of crores after bombing at the box-office.

“We have suspended shoots but only to emerge stronger as an industry,” says Dil Raju, film producer and president of the Active Telugu Film Producers Guild. Raju has delivered a string of Telugu hits, including the latest ‘Vakeel Saab’. The newly elected president of Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce, Basi Reddy, concurs. He is in discussions with various sectors of the industry to cut costs. At the centre of issues are stars and their rocketing remuneration.

Consider this: an upcoming male actor reportedly got Rs. 6 crores for a movie in 2021. The film did well at the box office. For his next film, he increased his fees to Rs. 14 crores and the film flopped, making barely Rs. 6 crore.

Some of the top male actors are said to be earning more than Rs. 40 crore per film. This is not directly as remuneration but in other ways, like taking the distribution rights for a territory. No one reveals the numbers, but if one has to make a film with any of the top heroes, the minimum budget that is required is Rs 100 crore. “The tragedy is that 50% of the budget is the hero’s remuneration,” a producer said. Female actors, too, demand crores and character artists in several lakhs.

Besides, chartered flights are used to take top actors to other cities. Earlier, only the hero would have a caravan but now apart from heroines, all character artists settle for nothing less than an exclusive caravan at the shoot. “I was aghast to see 32 caravans at a film shooting. This definitely is a huge burden on the producer,” a leading producer says.

“If artists expect a certain remuneration it is justified. So long as the artist is in demand, he can command a price. If producers feel it is not useful to cast the actor, they will not. It is demand and supply,” said actor Suman, who has acted in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil films. He played the villain in the Rajinikanth-starrer ‘Sivaji’.

There are other problems too. The Telugu Film Workers Federation is demanding a 40% increase in wages, something that producers are not inclined towards but want to settle the matter with talks.

Theatre owners, on the other hand, want a hike in admission rates but small film producers are of the opinion that this is a disincentive as audiences would shy away from coming to theatres and wait for the film to make it to OTT. The theatre owners now ask producers not to release their films on OTT platforms until after six to 10 weeks of the theatre release.

“We have separate committees to look into all issues and we are hopeful of resolving all of them,” said noted film producer C Kalyan. Hopes are up, but so is the restlessness of an industry raring to get back after delivering runaway hits.