5 times movie buffs were excited when Tamil directors announced films with Telugu heroes

Multilingual films are nothing new to Kollywood – many stars and directors have come up with such projects in the past. However, films of pan-Indian appeal are the new fad among leading filmmakers across the country now, thanks to the humungous success of Baahubali franchise, KGF, reception for 2.0 in Bollywood market, and so on. Shankar’s next project with Ram Charan is the latest to join the bandwagon. Films buffs in Kollywood and Tollywood are equally excited about this movie since the movie was announced on Friday. Check out a few other instances in the last decade when announcements of a Tamil director making a movie with a Telugu star raised huge expectations…

Vijay, who had taken the whole south industry by storm with the cult film Arjun Reddy, cemented his position with the blockbuster flick Geeta Govindam. His next project, titled NOTA, which was made to be released in Tamil and Telugu, piqued the curiousity of movie enthusiasts across south, as the film had Anand Shankar at the helm. With films like Arima Nambi and Iru Mugan in his filmography, Anand’s third directorial movie which had politics as its backdrop was considered to be Vijay’s big ticket to Kollywood. The film, however, opened to mixed reviews, and couldn’t meet the expectations.

The announcement of bilingual flick, Spyder, a few years ago, made fans of both Mahesh and Murugadoss super excited. The former’s film before Spyder was the underwhelming Brahmotsavam, and the latter was in super form with his previous outing in Kollywood being the successful Vijay-starrer Kaththi. With Santhosh Sivan, SJ Suryah and Harris Jayaraj coming on board, expectations soar high. The team received phenomenal response during its promotional events in Chennai and Hyderabad, and fans of other stars, too, were eagerly waiting to catch the film in theatres. However, the movie opened to negative reviews – SJ Suryah’s performance as the antagonist was considered as the only positive aspect in the project.

This was a combination which made audiences from many states eagerly looking forward to it, as both the star and the director are known for the high entertainment quotient in their films. The project, which was supposed to be bankrolled by Gnanavel Raja, was launched with a grand event Chennai, with many attending the do. Allu Arjun spoke about his longtime dream to do a straight Tamil film at the event, and Lingusamy was more than happy to express his interest in directing the Stylish Star. However, the project never took off – we hear that creative indifferences among the leading crew members were the reason for the same.

Pawan Kalyan, who had earlier worked with Tamil directors, chose to work with Vishnuvardhan for Panjaa, a stylish action flick, which had massive expectations among the former’s fans. The film’s first look and songs by Yuvan Shankar Raja made fans so impressed that they were madly waiting to celebrate the movie in big screen. Many admirers of Pawan still believe that the movie remains to be the most stylishly made project of the star, although it didn’t succeed in satisfying the gigantic expectations of the actor’s fan base.

Known for narrating breezy, feel-good films, Radha Mohan tried his hands at action for the first time with the bilingual project Payanam (Gaganam in Telugu) which had Nagarjuna playing the protagonist. The film, which had flight hijack as its theme, had the star playing an NSG commando – the project marked his return to Kollywood after more than a decade. The movie, shot simultaneously in both the languages, had opened to encouraging reviews.