Goan Beauty Ileana recently observed that Tollywood is facing a crunch situation as far as heroines are concerned. A simple analysis will prove her statement right. Today the ‘A’ list of heroes includes NTR, Mahesh and Pawan followed by Ram Charan, Allu Arjun, Ravi Teja, Naga Chaitanya,Rana Daggubati and Prabhas. And then we have Nagarjuna, Balayya and Venkatesh. For these 12 heroes put together, we have approximately only 9 heroines.
Kajal, Tamanna, Samantha and Ileana bracket themselves in the ‘A’ list. They are followed by Anushka, Richa, Amala Paul, Nayantara and Taapsee at the next level. So a cumulative list of 9 heroines is a no-show for an industry that still averages 150-odd films, of which the top stars (listed above) act in at least 25. That would mean each of the heroines listed above has to appear in about 3 films per year. This clamouring for dates has resulted in a situation where heroines are demanding astronomical sums – almost all the heroines in the A list have breached the Rs. 1 crore mark.
When will this situation improve? Well, we can only hope for the best.