The lockdown regulations that were put to effect in March brought the Telugu film industry to an indefinite halt as film shootings and releases had to be postponed. Sadly for Tollywood, the foreseeable future does not look promising either.
The twin Telugu states are reporting record number of Covid-19 cases every passing day and the chances of normalcy being restored are bleak for now.
Massive support cast, surplus financial resources, and a large crew are prerequisites for most A-lister Telugu films. But the current situation pertaining to Covid-19 outbreak does not allow filmmakers to avail any of those above-mentioned facilities.
Additionally, all the top stars in Tollywood including Mahesh Babu, Jr NTR, Ram Charan, Allu Arjun, and Prabhas have advised the makers of their respective films to wait till coronavirus effect is nullified. Same is the case with veterans like Venkatesh, Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, and Nagarjuna. They are in no mood to take risks. Also, the believe the chances of contracting the virus on film sets are substantially high.
It is said that many Tollywood bigwigs are terrified with the rate at which Covid-19 is spreading and resuming shoots is not in their best interests. Many of them are willing to wait till coronavirus vaccine is available in the market and that looks distant from now.
At this rate, Tollywood seems to be giving up hope on 2020, owing to wide-spread novel coronavirus. There might be no major releases or resumption of shoots of big-ticket films till the end of the year.
Consequently, a few small and mid-range films which had already completed shoot might opt for OTT release. But films featuring top stars are likely to resume only in 2021. Needless to say, health and safety comes above all.