25 Glorious Years for Balakrishna’s ‘Aditya 369’
Though Hollywood is replete with science fiction movies, Tollywood has hardly produced many sci-fi movies since the inception. However, there are few movies stood the test of times and remained classics.
Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, who brought a whiff of fresh air with daring new style in direction and filmmaking in Indian cinema has directed some of the amazing films like “Aditya 369“, a magnum opus even by today’s standards and the first ever sci-fi film in Telugu.
The first and the only movie in Telugu which dealt with ‘Time Travel’ is Aditya 369 and is one of the finest movies of all time. Starring Nandamuri Balakrishna, Mohini in the lead roles the film recorded as an Industry Hit at the box office which collected 9 crore rupees at the box-office, a huge amount by the standards of that time.
Here are few snippets about the movie:
1) “Aditya 369” is the first and only Telugu movie based on Time Travel concept.
2) The movie has collected a whopping amount of 9 Crores at that time, a huge amount by then box-office standards.
3) Balakrishna has reprised the historical role for the first time as the emperor ‘Krishandevaraya’ and it still remains immortal.
4) Hero Tarun and heroine Rasi were seen as the child artists in the movie.
5) This is the only Balakrishna’s sci-fiction movie in his career spanning near 40 years.
6) The movie is an adapted version of the novel ‘Time Machine’ written by H. G. Wells.
7) Maestro Ilayaraja’s background music stood as the backbone for the elevation of the film’s concept and the songs composed by Ilayaraja stood as evergreen numbers even till date.
8) Legendary singer SP Balu is the first to listen to this story line from Director Singeetham in a flight journey and he suggested his cousin Krishnaprasad as the producer and also Balakrishna as the hero whose dates were available with Krishnaprasad saying Balaiah would be apt for the role of Sri Krishnadevaraya.
9) Lady Amitabh Vijayashanti was the first choice for the heroine, but Mohini was introduced from Kollywood on the suggestion of Cinematographer PC Sriram, as Vijayashanti’s dates could not be adjusted.
10) Three popular Cinematographers of that era, PC Sriram, VSR Swamy and Kabir Lal worked for Aditya 369 for Present, Past and the Future episodes respectively.
11) Aditya 369 had a huge casting with stalwarts like Amrish Puri, Tinnu Anand, Chandra Mohan, Silk Smitha, Gollapudi, Sutti Velu, Subhalekha Sudhakar, Brahmanandam, Srilakshmi along with the leads.
12) The film production costed huge about 1.6 crores and collected 9 crores approximately. Not just this, but Aditya 369 has stood a brand name for the banner “Sridevi Movies”.
