The Naveen Polishetty comedy Jathi Ratnalu has broken all boxoffice records in Telugu cinema, garnering the staggering figure Rs 80 crores in worldwide figures so far, during these traumatic Covid times.
Bhai, sequel toh banta hai!
Sure enough , here is heartening news for all fans of the film’s slipper-heroes(workingclass heroes in Hawaii chappals). The sequel , so far only whispered about, is now going to be a reality.
That’s right. Jathi Ratnalu2 is ready to go on the flows sometimes early next year. Sources say month and date will be announced once the pandemic situation is clearer. What we can tell you is that Navin Pollishetty and his three co-stars Priyadarshi Pullikonda as Jogipet Shekar,Rahul Ramakrishna as Jogipet Ravi, Faria Abdullah as Chitti will be back,
Sources say there is going to be no major change in the cast and crew of the sequel. The only change that is on the anvil is Naveen Pollishetty’s remuneration. He was apparently Rs 60 lakhs for Jathi Ratnalu. His fee for the sequelwill be close to Rs 3 crores.
Speaking about the film’s success Naveen told me, “We knew once the film releases the audiences would laugh their heads off .This is why the producers took a risk and not released the film on OTT.They were confident of the content. What we were surprised by was the scale of the success. At this point of life,we were not sure people would come out of their homes during these times of the pandemic. Two days before the release the advance bookings were almost full. We knew we had a success in hand. How big a success, we couldn’t have guessed.It was beyond anything we expected.At the theatres on the opening day we couldn’t hear a word of the dialogues on screen. The audiences were that excited! They were dancing in even the multiplexes. They were laughing yelling …This is the kind of community experience in movie theatres that I had seen as a child. This is what made me fall in love with cinema.This is what made me want to become an actor. People forget their worries for two and a half hours and just enjoy themselves. They laugh ,they forgot their worries, they have a good time and they go back home. This to me is what cinema is all about.”