Has Siddhu Jonnalagadda lost pulling power post Tillu Square?

Siddhu Jonnalagadda gained stardom with the “Tillu” franchise. However, his stardom seems to have a limited range, or so it appears after his last two releases.

A true star is one who guarantees strong openings regardless of genre, director, or production banner. But after “DJ Tillu” and its sequel “Tillu Square,” both runaway blockbusters, Siddhu has failed to prove that he can deliver big openings solely on his name.

He has had two releases after Tillu Square: Jack and Telusu Kada. While “Jack” turned out to be a disaster of disasters, its result shocked everyone in the Telugu film industry. Being his immediate release after “Tillu Square,” trade circles expected massive openings. However, “Jack” underperformed on day one and collapsed immediately after negative talk spread. The film raised doubts about Siddhu’s box-office pull.

Now, “Telusu Kada” is also ending up a failure. Given the flop result of “Jack,” trade analysts and industry insiders did not expect much in terms of openings this time. As anticipated, the film opened to low numbers, and without strong reviews, it could not sustain.

The only saving grace for “Telusu Kada” is that producer TG Vishwa Prasad of People Media Factory did not sell the film to distributors. He opted for a nominal commission-based release, ensuring no distributor suffered losses. The expected overall loss, after factoring in non-theatrical rights, is around Rs 10 crore, which will be borne solely by the producer.

With these two back-to-back failures, Siddhu Jonnalagadda has shown that his box-office pulling power is limited, despite having a decent following among the youth. Producers are likely to tread cautiously while budgeting his upcoming films. As of now, Siddhu has yet to build a strong base outside the Tillu movies.