Natural Star Nani is one of the most bankable heroes in the Telugu Film Industry. Since his debut in Asta Chamma, the actor has grown leaps and bounds both in acting and in stardom. Yet, he is unable to break the barrier between him and the top-range stars. Even though he has a good fan following and market, he is continuously staying in the mid-range hero market. Heroes who debuted after him also have reached a better market while Nani stays where he is. This showed in Ante Sundaraniki’s weak collections even after the movie had a strong word of mouth.
Vijay Deverakonda, for example, has reached stardom within no time. Currently, he is doing films with star directors like Puri Jagannath at the pan-Indian level. While any star director is ready to do a mass film with Nani, he keeps on doing medium-budget films with newbies. At least one or two commercial blockbusters are what he needs desperately to reach tier 1 alongside Ram Charan, Ntr, Prabhas, Allu Arjun etc. The cine analysts say that this is the actor’s own fault in not trying to do any commercial films. A hero who stayed in the mid-range for a long time will be forgotten just after two or three flops, they say. Examples like Rajasekhar, Suman, and Bhanu Chander who were all mid-range marketed heroes throughout their careers and now are left with no space in the industry. Their contemporaries Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh and Balakrishna are still ruling the TFI since they had the star power. The experts are suggesting that Nani had to try for the tier-1 range as fast as possible or else, it will be difficult for him going forward.