Mahesh and Pawan-success rate

We often listen how our stars have survived a long period of flops for long time and yet retained their fan following or even increased them over the years despite having no big success. The most important one being Pawan Kalyan and his long streak of no hits for almost 10years  or Mahesh Babu with almost no success for half a decade and yet these stars are today in a great position at the box office and that’s a truth that can’t be taken off from them. But when we closely look at the movies these stars have done you would know that these lacks of hits for years is just a humbug. The reality is that these heros have done very less number of movies over a stretch of such long time and these long periods. Coupled with their prime time have helped them sustain their stardom as simple as that.

Pawan’s post Kushi saw a big success after kushi  in the form of Jalsa . If one were to look in terms of years that would be seven years but if one were to look in terms of number of movies that is a success after five movies among which frankly speaking in terms of trade only one was disaster. Similarly Mahesh Babu has had no success after Pokiri and it took him five years to get a success with Dookudu . But again the reality is that Mahesh Babu tasted a success after just three films.

Now if success after three and five films is one side of the coin, success after five and ten years is another side of the coin. A narration based on number of years for lack of success has been built as a myth to increase the aura around these stars like these guys have not  got a success for so many years and yet increased their stardom, imagine what would happen if they get back to back success. And this narrative is lapped up by fans too who seems to think this is something to be proud off. In reality though no star and when we say no star we really mean it, could go about such long time without giving success and yet not get effected box office wise and see a downfall in growth of fans.

In cricketing terms one would call it as hit rate (alias strike rate) and no star has gone hitless for almost a decade by doing films regularly. The star with the best hit rate in Telugu cinema industry without any doubt is Mahesh who has throughout his career given a hit after every two or three films. Unlike Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan and Jr NTR have struggled to put together successive hits in short periods post their seventh films respectively.