Prabhas Storms B-Town

The year 2019, belongs to Prabhas as he wowed the Indian viewers with 'Saaho' and became the first Telugu star to rock Hindi heartland by drawing more than Rs 60 crore collections. Prabhas is shining brightly across India and expanded his base, mainly among the Hindi-speaking audience, who negated Telugu stars.

Trade expert Taran Adarsh, feels that Prabhas has become the 'face' of Telugu cinema. "Of course, Vijay Deverakonda and Mahesh Babu are also gaining fame, but Prabhas is way ahead of them and his market could expand over Rs 300 crores," he adds.

Director Sudheer Varma feels that Tollywood stars need to experiment more than sticking to a chosen path to attract the Telugu audience. "Along with good guy roles, 2019 has been the season of dark heroes. Our new heroes are illiterate, courageous, who don't mind mouthing a few cuss words and showcase their machoism. But not all dark films have worked because of bad scripts," he adds.

"Among middle-aged stars, Chiru and Venky scored big hits, while their colleagues had hit a lean patch. Balakrishna's latest film 'Ruler' also tanked at the box office," says distributor Ramakrishna and adds, "Seasoned actors have to play it safe rather than going against their established image."