Crafting movies out of novels was a major trend of the bygone era in Tollywood. Akkineni Nageswara Rao was considered to be the ‘Novel Hero’ as he has acted in highest number of movies made from novels. After ANR, Chiranjeevi acted in numerous movies based on novels. ‘Abhilasha’, ‘Challenge’, ‘Maranamrudangam’, ‘Rakshasudu’, ‘Stuartpuram Police Station’, ‘Dongamogudu’ and ‘Chantabbayi’ are some of them. This trend saw a decline in 90s as stars began to prefer remakes. After the advent of OTT platforms, the makers are now looking back towards novels, for their stories.
Web series is the latest trend on OTT now as they are entertaining people with unique content and plot value. Particularly in this lockdown, they have saved people from boredom. As there is a need for more in the coming future, producers and directors are opting for classic novels that have been loved by literary buffs and common readers. One of them is Gudipati Venkatachalam’s classic ‘Maidanam’.
Venu Udugula who previously directed the acclaimed film ‘Needi Naadi Oke Katha’ is filming his upcoming project ‘Virataparvam’ now. Sources say that he is trying to make a web series based on ‘Maidanam’. Makers want to cast a star heroine in this project and the details of director and other technicians will be revealed soon.
The novel ‘Saptabhumi’ by Bandi Narayana Swamy garnered rave reviews from literary circles as well as critics and bagged ‘The Sahitya Academy’ award. Director Indraganti Mohana Krishna bagged the rights for this novel recently and is working on adapting it into a web series.
No one can forget Madhubabu’s ‘Shadow’ novels as they have a separate fan base. AK Entertainments is producing a web series based on his ‘Shadow’ novel as announced by Anil Sunkara recently. Madhu Babu is said to be penning the script and details about the director and the leading actor are yet to be revealed. Let’s hope this novel trend will live up to the expectation of audiences.
