Success Events Have Lost Their Meaning in Tollywood

In Tollywood, the once-earnest tradition of hosting successful meets has turned into a spectacle of pretense. Despite poor openings and box office failures, many filmmakers are still staging grand celebrations, blurring the line between genuine success and desperate marketing gimmicks.

Among the nearly 20 recent flops—Odela 2, Robinhood, Arjun s/o Vyjayanthii, Mazaka, Jack, Laila, Shanmukha, 28 Degree Celsius, Akkada Abbai Ikkada Aamayi, Chaurya Paatam, and Saranganii Jathakam—many still held elaborate events, complete with fireworks and cake-cutting. “Success meets have lost their value,” says veteran distributor Tirupati Varadareddy. “You can’t draw crowds with crackers and cakes. Sooner or later, filmmakers will realize that these tricks can’t fool today’s audience.”

In one telling case, a producer organized a success meet not to celebrate a box office hit, but to console a lead actor struggling with repeated failures. “The actor even took a vacation to celebrate,” Reddy reveals, “but within days, the truth about the film’s poor performance surfaced. The event was more about sparing the actor’s feelings than acknowledging real success.”

Lavish promotional tours—flying cast and crew to cities like Vizag and Vijayawada—have also become common, despite rarely boosting collections. “Some still believe these gimmicks can create an illusion of success,” Varadareddy adds, “but audiences are smarter now. These tactics are losing their effect.”

Today, word-of-mouth and solid content are what truly drive a film’s success. The real winners this season—Sankranthi Vasthunam, Mad Square, Court, and HIT 3—earned their status through quality and strong audience reception, not just marketing.

“Back in the day, success meetings were held after 50 or 100 days of a film’s run and truly meant something,” Varadareddy recalls. “Now, they’re held on the release day or the very next day, often just to maintain appearances. Even actors are instructed to stay back for these events before flying out.”

He says that such events are organised even in Bollywood and Kollywood, but surely Tollywood has to return to celebrating real success, not fabricated one.