Kolaveri in Time magazine

Anirudh, who is making his debut as a music director with 3, couldn't have asked for a better start to his Kollywood career. For, Why This Kolaveri Di, the very first song of his first film, has now started winning awards, after having taken the nation by storm.

Yes, Kolaveri has just won the YouTube Gold award, which is presented to viral videos from across the world. Beams Anirudh, "It is true. The record label has received official intimation. I don't know if they will have a function to present the award but yes, Kolaveri has been chosen for the award."

And that's not all.

An article on the song, the lyrics of which have been penned by Dhanush, has also been featured in this edition of the Time magazine.

Get Anirudh to react to this piece of information and he smiles yet again. "I'm not sure about this fact but someone I know told me that it is after 20 years after it featured a story on Roja that the magazine is running such a story again," says Anirudh.

Roja? The similarities are hard to miss. Will he turn out to be another Rahman and Anirudh responds immediately, "Oh no, Rahman sir is my inspiration. I will happily retire if I manage to accomplish even five per cent of what Rahman sir has achieved. I'm just one song old and have a long way to go."

The song's success has lifted the spirits of the entire team of 3.

Tweeted Dhanush, "To all my north Indian Kolaveri fans, thanks for receiving a Tamil song with a warm heart and making it a global song. God bless."

Tamil Cinema shows its stamina

Suriya in 7 AM Arivu

Kollywood has emerged as the largest film industry in South India, pushing Tollywood into the second spot. This was revealed in a report released by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
The Tamil film market is ahead with a share of 36 percent of the overall south Indian market. Tamil will see its movie industry grow from Rs 940 crore of revenue to Rs 1,450 crore in four years.
This year, 150 films were released in Tamil.
The Telugu film market is a close second in box office revenue, recording Rs900 crore this year, expected to increase to Rs 1,380 crore by 2015.
Regional cinema’s reach and muscle were evident with big budget blockbuster films like Enthiran (Robot in Telugu version) raking in as much as Rs 200-225 crore in all languages.
Recently, Mahesh Babu’s Dookudu made news in the US for its weekend collections on par with Hollywood films in some areas.
The regional television market too is poised for a healthy growth. The regional television market, which accounts for 30 percent of the overall Indian market, is currently valued at Rs10,630 crore and will grow 17 percent in the next four years to reach Rs 19,810 crore, said the report.
Subscription revenue remains the main source of income for companies, contributing 67 percent of total television revenue in the the region. While all of the entertainment channels are subscription-based, most of the news channels are free-to-air, and hence do not make much revenues at present.

Rajini's RANA Shelved!!!??

Although there has been no official announcement yet, but the rumour doing the rounds is that Rajinikanth's enterprising project RANA has been shelved.


Reportedly, the actor, in a recent check-up by the doctors has been advised continued bed rest until February next year.

The south superstar, who is acclaimed for his distinctly styled dialogues, was signed-up for RANA in the beginning of this year but due to his health issues the film's shooting could not commence.

Ever since, the film is kept on hold.

Earlier, there were reports about the film coming back on floors in August but unfortunately, nothing of this sort happened.

RANA which is a historical action film to be produced and directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth and K. S. Ravikumar respectively requires the Tamil actor, who is playing a triple role, to be in great shape and do a lot of heavy-duty action.

Although, he has recovered quite a lot but keeping in mind that RANA is too big a risk to have him work on such an intense project, the film's fate is under speculations.

Even in October this year, it was reported that the film has been shelved but later Sunil Lulla of Eros International said that they have no plans to shelve the film and the shooting will commence, probably, in December.


But now when the news about doctors advising him bed-rest has appeared, it is apparent that the film might not start in coming month as well.

Even Deepika Padukone, who plays the female lead in the film, has started shooting for her upcoming films, one of them being, YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI with Ranbir Kapoor.

Apart from Deepika, the other Bollywood actor that RANA features is Sonu Sood.

However, the Kollywood media is full of reports about Rajini doing his next movie with his daughter Aishwarya. There are also reports that the makers of the film are planning to bring up a lighter script with the same cast and set up that doesn't require the ailing actor to do any intense scenes.

With no official announcement as of now, we can just pray for the health of the actor and the fate of the film.