There are a lot of star directors and then there is SS Rajamouli. The man turned himself into a brand which is not an easy task in his hero-worshipping industry. No matter how big the director is, we call it by attaching star hero’s name beside it.
But when it comes to him, we call it a Rajamouli film no matter how big the star hero is. He made himself so big that people started talking about collections as the ‘Non-SSR’ industry hit.
The great thing about Rajamouli is that he betters himself with each and every film. If we look back at the last two decades, the benchmark films in Tollywood were all made by Rajamouli.
Just with his second film, he scored an industry hit that too with a young hero who was not even twenty years old at that time. It was ‘Simhadri’ for people who are not aware.
At a time when touching the 50 crore mark in Telugu states was considered an impossible task, Rajamouli surpassed everyone’s imagination and minted 75 crores in united Andhra Pradesh with ‘Magadheera’ back in 2009.
He proved that he doesn’t need a star hero to give a blockbuster with ‘Eega’ which came in 2012. The technology used in the film was top-notch and showcased the master storyteller’s brilliance.
It was his ‘Baahubali – The Beginning’ which turned out to be the first film to get a share of over 100 crores in the Telugu states. It came out in 2015.
He proved the stamina of a Telugu film to the national audience with this film. In 2017, he broke his own records as ‘Baahubali – The Conclusion’ got a share of 190 crores in Telugu states. The dubbed version of this film crossed 450 crores in the Hindi market which made Rajamouli the biggest director of Indian cinema.
No other hero managed to touch this record till date and it was Rajamouli again who arrived with ‘RRR’ in 2022 and collected a share of 200 crores in Telugu states thereby surpassing ‘Baahubali –The Conclusion’ records.
This way, it is Rajamouli who made every film in recent times that set a benchmark in Tollywood. If this doesn’t prove that he is head and shoulders above the rest then we don’t know what does!