swashbuckling warriors princesses in distress conniving mantris wise sages and scary tantriks seem to have taken over tollywood of late well we are talking about the flurry of fantasy films part mythologypart modern starring alisters boasting of mammoth budgets and mindboggling technology that are all set to capture ttowns audiences and all of them seem to have set magadheera and arundhati as the benchmarkthis monthend will see the junior ntrileana starrer shakti which is being touted as the highest budget film hitting the marquee the next in the pipeline is nagarjunas sociofantasy film damarukam in which almost 50 minutes of the screen time will be loaded with visual effects and nagarjuna will be appearing in four distinct getups in the film allu arjun who is busy wrapping up badrinath is reportedly going to do a 50 crore fantasy flick with selva raghavan which will be made in telugu tamil and hindi the other much talked about film is prabhas upcoming full fantasy film to be directed by ace director rajamouli who is currently working on eega a liveanimation fantasy film which is about a houseflys previous birth saga and how the fly avenges those who have wronged him in his earlier human avatar commenting on the spate of fantasy films directorproducer thammareddy bharadwaj says it just an example of the herd mentality of tollywood if any film clicks that formula is copied to death that is why we do not get new themes in films while ap producer council president shyam prasad reddy of arundhathi fame agrees that success spawns copies he does not ascribe it to herd mentality after the success of magadheera and arundhati filmmakers have realized the potential in fantasy films and almost all the producers doing these films are experienced people nobody wants to do a metoo it is just a coincidence and rather unfortunate that all these big films are releasing at the same time watching a fantasy film is an experience the audiences look forward to its only that now they will have it in excess he goes on to substantiate his view point this phenomenon of replicating success is a universal one look at bollywood we had a rash of multiplex films some time ago and now the success of dabangg is prompting them to go for the masala variety again in hollywood when the excorcist was released there were a bunch of similar films like the omen the evil etc the success of the harry potter and lord of the rings series has spawned a bunch of fantasy films here too i am sure by yearend the success of ala modalaindi will lead to a bunch of feelgood films just as happy days spawned off a bunch of collegebased filmstalk of fantasy films and big budgets are not far behind are bigbudget or rather unlimitedbudget films a sort of an ego trip for big stars and directors agreeing to it thamareddy says regarding budgets there is competition among filmmakers