King Nagarjuna, promoting Coolie, at Hyderabad, made an interesting statement. He stated that director Lokesh Kanagaraj asked for a certain hefty amount as budget for the filming from Sun Pictures. On the last day of the shoot, he told Nagarjuna that the movie is completed with Rs.5 crores left in the bank, from production budget.

He commented that Lokesh could have asked for 10-15 crores or even 20 crores more but he tried to finish it in less amount than that. Well, his comments seem to be pointing at Pan-India film directors from Telugu Cinema. SS Rajamouli, while been notorious in increasing budgets, his films have better Return on Investment.

But looking at him, others are trying similar tactics but the delays in production and high salaries, huge amount of re-shoots have been costing producers more than they have agreed to spend. Sukumar's films until Rangasthalam, except for Arya, have been cost failures and Pushpa: The Rise had reported losses too.

Even Pushpa: The Rule went over budget and shot till last 5 days before release. Even there have been rumors about numerous amount of re-shoots, issues between Allu Arjun and director. Pushpa 2: The Rule did collect huge but the wastage and cost effectiveness have always been an issue with Sukumar.

Trivikram Srinivas, Koratala Siva have been hit or miss kind of directors, lately and even their films have been reportedly too costly and ineffective in controlling budgets. Saaho, Radhe Shyam have lost huge amounts and even Vishambhara has been dragging on for years.

Lokesh Kanagaraj, on the other hand, handled a multi-starrer like Coolie with different stars and cameos in planned time. Even Mani Ratnam, completed his high budget historical fiction, Ponniyin Selvan, within the planned time and budget, even with COVID pandemic hanging on their backs.

While Shankar had been notorious in over-spending, but he had been an inspiration in taking Indian Cinema to International level. Now, for recent times, it seems like Telugu directors and upcoming filmmakers need to take inspiration of Lokesh to control budgets and plan well ahead with confidnece in their content.

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