Thala Ajith - Vijay Devarakonda public warnings and Managers

 

As Bollywood is rocked by activities of Star Managers, Kollywood saw for the first time a top notch Star Ajith in a legal notice stating the name of his manager as  the only official link to him. In Tollywood, youth icon Vijay Devarakonda like a corporate entity had to issue a statement that only his official social media handles is taken as confirmation of his projects. In the South, previously it was the family members that took care of the talks with producers - directors. It later shifted to a manager after the advent of Mumbai based heroines into the South. They had no idea of the industry or the language. A Hindi speaking guy with film background based in Chennai would serve as the manager. Later as these Mumbai gals started getting offers from Telugu films, they appointed a manager in Hyderabad too.  Still the heroes l had no such categories. They had only a guy to collect the cheque and take care of schedules with production houses. This was because the heroes were all Tamil speaking guys. All they had  was a PRO.

Taking a cue from casting agencies that linked models with advertising agencies, the start of a casting manager started.  These guys acted as a link between the models and the filmdom. They tied up with Mumbai agencies to arrange for a dekho and audition of aspirants for directors coming to the metro.  Kamal  Haasan had a manager DNS who did what was told by his boss. Rajinikanth had no such person fixed . Nor did he have any steady PRO . Sathyaraj and Karthik had managers. Prabhu’s brother took care of his dates. Kushboo had a manager but the final call was hers. The scene changed when non Tamil speaking Abbas made it big in Tamil. He put a manager and the rest is history, Vikram had  Giri as his manager. Ajith at that stage did all the dealings himself and Suresh Chandra did the legwork. Prashanth’s Star Dad Thiagarajan did all the talking.  

Things changed when the dividing line between PRO and Manager became thin. Some like Nayanthara, Suriya, Dhanush had a combo of a manager and a PRO to handle their affairs. Now there is a lot of ambiguity regarding with whom to initiate talks about a project that involves a Star.  Many novices turn to Film Directory filled with outdated numbers of managers.

In Bollywood, this problem is solved to a great extent as there is a system called Casting managers. The plus is that they get  you appointments. On the downside, these guys can be also be playing favourites and mostly their ranking is linked to the banners- directors and Stars that they are close to. For a newcomer or an over the hill actor, these managers are GOD. Down South, no banner- director has entrusted anybody to do this job. Even the job of a PRO in Tamil is linked to the hero. The banner usually   gives the PRO job to the guy who works for the hero. In the South, for the first time a professionally run Talent management agency called KWAN was setup in Hyderabad. It was owned by Rana Daggubatti of the Rama Naidu clan. It has reportedly Trisha, Nayanthara and many others in the South and from Mumbai as clients. Salman Khan’s lawyer has refuted the news that his client has a majority stake in KWAN. An employee, Jaya of KWAN, phone conversations with actorsabout drug deals is with NCB.

In the case of Ajith, the rounds doing is that an ex-producer was going around saying that he was given an offer to do a film as a gesture to bail him out. The Film Financiers – Theater – distributor – Digital providers have formed a Federation by which no such deal can come through. Yet another story is that a fixer  is going around claiming that he was the go between the actor and the  director to arrange a story sitting and is the new link to the Star. Ajith has now set the record straight – If it is from Suresh Chandra then everything about me is OFFICIAL.  

Next in the rankings is Thalapathy Vijay. He had a magazine publisher- small time producer P T Selvakumar as his manager. He was working from the days when Vijay’s father SAC used to direct him. After almost a decade, Selvakumar was made a producer of a film titled Puli in which Vijay acted and had Sreedevi in a pivotal role. Whether PTS gained financial stability with this movie is doubtful, a new guy Jagadish became his manager. This guy was very active and also worked for Keerthy Suresh. He is the executive producer of Vijay’s upcoming film – Master. Now Jagadish is working for actor Jeyam Ravi. Though the buzz is that he had a fallout with Vijay, those in the know say that Editor Mohan who is family friend of SAC and Vijay would not appoint someone who has bad blood with Vijay for his son Ravi.

News had come out that Vijay Devarakonda signed a Tamil film.  The actor's team had to ask the producers to deny the news, as it became sensational. Actually, producers from Dusky Entertainments approached Vijay Devarakonda and the actor turned down their offer. Producers clarified that they did not sign the actor and expressed interest to work with him in future. They have lodged a complaint on those people who spread false news. “Any project Vijay Deverakonda is associated with shall be formally announced by him and his producers. Official confirmation can also be verified on VDs official SM handles. While we take action against these perpetrators, We request all to be alert and double check any information in their personal best interests." posted Team Vijay Devarakonda.