Telugu Cinema has seen a sea of changes over the period of time since it's inception in the year,1932. The tales of how touring talkies, the moving theatres, have captured the imagination of masses still give ultimate lessons about the passion that drove early filmmakers to popularise the medium against the gigantically popular Theatre.
It took almost twenty years from the relesse of the first telugu movie to talk about the potentiality of the market and growth in the business, with a holistic approach. The new business model at the time, seemed fruitful with the emergence of then stars, Anjali Devi, Savitri, Jamuna, Kannamba, Bhanumathi, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao, Relangi Venkataramayya, Ramana Reddy and S.V. Ranga Rao.
The business of Telugu Cinema kept growing leaps and bounds with viewers ever diminishing interest on Telugu Theatre, that refused to learn lessons from its mistakes. Cinema on the whole, started becoming a commercial medium as the businessmen from different legs of society took over the cash cow, resulting it to become more and more economics oriented rather than art.
After the early generation of makers, like B. Nagi Reddy, K.V. Reddy, Chakrapani, Dukkipati Madhusudhan Rao, L.V. Prasad, A.V. Meiyappan Chettiar, Adurti Subba Rao, films in Telugu became more about the actors and their star statuses with some preference to story. Even that further took a nosedive with the commercially sound filmmakers like K. Raghavendra Rao and Dasari Narayana Rao, concentrating on emanating a formula for cinema, in general.
Today, Telugu Cinema stands at the edge of a cliff, waiting to fall into a deep abyss of depression with more reliance of cash minting proposals rather than Cinema. Except for SS Rajamouli, none of the present generation filmmakers were able to show passion to experiment within the commercial space. If you observe, Rajamouli has a set formula to his stories but he succeeds in creating better characters and presenting a conflict between them, with intricate detailing.
Now, most of young makers who try to look at World Cinema for "inspirations", do need to understand Telugu Cinema and audience on the whole to save it from falling into the proverbial pit, as deep and dangerous as one in Hannibal Lecter's basement. Can Bahubali2 projected to be "Indian" cinema bring back glory to commercial cinema by showing the art and commerce revered alliance is possible? A question may be more critical for Telugu Cinema, than "Why Kattappa Killed Bahubali?"