It’s raining ‘punch dialogues’ in what has been a summer of “mass entertainers” in Tollywood this year. Be it Rana’s “Na Ishtam”, Ram Charan’s “Racha” or the latest NTR Jr extravaganza – the stars made no bones about playing to the galleries. Pawan Kalyan’s upcoming film, Ravi Teja’s “Daruvu”, Prabhasstarrer “Rebel” and Allu Arjun’s “Julayi”, all fall under the bracket of what we can safely term “crowd pleasers”.

Interestingly, not long ago, the very same actors had tried breaking out of the commercial mould by trying to do something hatke. Rana played an assassin who falls in love with a girl who shoots videos of people committing suicides in “Nenu Na Rakshasshi”. Ram Charan’s “Orange” was an urban romance set in Australia, which is the love story of a commitment-phobic young man. Pawan Kalyan and NTR Jr also tried to take a break from the routine fare with “Panja” and “Oosaravelli” respectively. But with none of these films managing to hit bull’s eye, looks like our heroes have had a collective change of mind for summer 2012, and are pulling out all stops to impress the hooting classes.

Director Nandini Reddy thinks it’s more a matter of coincidence than a collective decision to ‘play safe’. “The masala entertainers have always been very popular with the Tollywood audiences traditionally. We all love them and I am eagerly waiting for Pawan Kalyan’s next to release. But to have almost all the big stars doing them at the same time is sheer co-incidence. I think it’s one of those cyclical phases where a certain kind of film works and suddenly you have a slew of such movies in the pipeline. Having said that, the movie still needs to offer someentertainment value for it to click at the BO,” explains Nandini.

Well, co-incidence could be just part of the reason. The other part could perhaps have something to do with the emergence of a new breed of directors, who are themselves self-confessed “ardent fans” of the stars.

Boyapati Srinu has gone on record to say that he is an ardent fan of the Nandamuri clan and that his films are tailor-made to suit the hardcore fan. Similarly, Sampath Nandi (director of “Racha”) is admittedly a huge fan of the Mega family and Harish Shankar who is directing the Telugu remake of “Dabangg”, has admitted to being a huge fan of Pawan Kalyan.

Over all it seems to be a safe summer for Tollywood heroes.