Daily Times

Pushpa 2 stars Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna and Fahadh Faasil. One of the highly anticipated Telugu movies, Pushpa: The Rule was launched on Monday with a customary puja. It was a low-key affair presided over by director Sukumar as the film’s star Allu Arjun is in New York. As a sign of solidarity with the producers’ union in Telugu cinema, the filmmakers of Pushpa 2 had earlier put the project on hold. The producers union had called for cancelling all the shootings of Telugu cinema to discuss the various challenges faced by the film industry. The strike was called in the light of a series of box office failures in the Telugu states, sending a wave of panic among the stakeholders. The abysmal performance of several big star movies, including those of Nani and Ravi Teja, had forced the film industry to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new-age approach to filmmaking to deal with the rising production costs, government-regulated ticket prices and the rise of the popularity of the OTT platforms.