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ShareMove aside Beverly Hills, Hyderabad's Telugu film industry has now surpassed Bollywood in the production race. While 245 films were made in Mumbai last year, Hyderabad raced ahead with a total of 268 films.
Between 1994 and 1997, Telugu cinema had outraced Bollywood. Production declined subsequently. It is after almost a decade-long hiatus that the Telugu film industry -- called Tollywood -- has topped Bollywood.
Official statistics by the Central Board of Film Certification on Wednesday state that Hyderabad's film production rate has jumped from 155 to 268 last year. In Mumbai, the film production rate remained steady, recording a marginal increase from 222 films to 245 films.
India maintained its position as the world's largest film-producing country with 1041 films being certified in 2005, rising from 934 the previous year.
Hyderabad -- with four sprawling studios at prime locations like Banjara and Jubilee Hills -- has been witnessing the rise of multiplexes and audience attendance. Films featuring superstar Chiranjeevi continue to generate a huge pre-release buzz.
His latest film Jai Chiranjeeva packed them in during the first week, but the collections crashed subsequently. Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Pawan Kalyan, Junior NTR, Siddharth, Balakrishna and Mahesh Babu have their major fan followings too.
Many Mumbai heroinesare still a rage in Telugu, including Bhumika Chawla, Katrina Kaif, Sameera Reddy, Amisha Patel and Ayesha Takia.
Telugu films have also found a new market overseas, especially in the US, Malaysia and Mauritius. After Telugu and Hindi films, the Tamil film industry's annual film production rate stands at the third place, with a steady output of 136 films during 2004-05 and 155 films the previous year.
Kannada cinema occupies the fourth spot in film production with a steady output of 65 films a year.Bengali cinema has a low, but steady production of 40 to 50 films a year. Though Marathi cinema had dipped to just 25 films in 2003-04, it rose to 57 in the subsequent year. Bhojpuri films, which have found a new untapped market, are growing in number every day, what with Dilip Kumar-Saira Banu and Ekta Kapoor also making forays into this area with their film productions. The number of Bhojpuri films have zoomed from a mere 10 to 40 in a single year.
