The recent announcement of National Awards had drawn a lot of controversy with celebrities and common populace talking far and against the choice of awardees.

Reacting to all these, the National Award winner for Best Actor, Akshay Kumar, had stated to North Indian media that if people felt that he was not worthy enough to win an award for Best Actor despite being in the industry for over 25 years, they are welcome to take it off from him.

Akshay Kumar won the Best Actor for Rustom. Director AR Murugadoss had openly criticized the jury and we have also reported the opinions on either side of this controversy.

Avatar, directed by James Cameron, is one of all time high grosser in the history of World Cinema, and the team is busy with the sequel works of the same.

According to the latest reports, the team has announced the release dates of the entire Avatar series, which will be having 5 parts.

The release dates are as follows:

Avatar 2 - Dec 18, 2020

Avatar 3 - Dec 17, 2021
Avatar4 - Dec 20, 2024
Avatar 5 - Dec 19, 2025

The makers have planned to release each sequel in the third week Friday of December. This definitely must be an exciting information for all the film buffs.

Jyothika, in her speech during the Magalir Mattum audio launch, sent a strong message to all the filmmakers who direct big stars, and she also made a request to show their heroines in a dignified manner.

"To all the directors who make big hero films-please, I kindly request you all to give your heroines, some kind of dignity. Give them the characters that are similar to the women, who play important roles in your real life, be it your mother or wife or girlfriend. I know you won't be giving them good costumes (dressing) physically, but at least give them some meaningful, sensible characters.

It is not good to see the heroines stand near the comedians, utter double meaning dialogues, shamelessly run behind the heroes proposing their love with very bad introduction scenes.  Please stop all these. Heroes have a huge fan following, and all their dialogues, mannerisms are being imitated by the common people.

Cinema has a significant impact on the youth, and when a hero has four heroines in a film, a youngster might think it is okay to have three, four girlfriends at the same time. It is enough for one hero to have one heroine. There is no need for a second. It's just a message to the directors. Let's make good films. Let us be socially responsible for the women in our country because this has a strong impact",said Jyothika, in this bold and gutsy speech.

The 70-year-old veteran Bollywood actor Vinod Khanna passed away on Thursday (27/04/2017) after battling with cancer for quite some time.

Vinod had been a part of several Bollywood hits like Amar Akbar Anthony, Qurbani and many more. He was admitted to the HN Reliance Foundation and Research Centre in Girgaon, Mumbai recently. He was also an active politician who was a sitting MP from Gurdaspur.

This is definitely a big loss for Indian film industry. Rest in peace Vinod Khanna!

The Baahubali 2 team was seen in Dubai yesterday (25th April), as part of the film's promotions there. The team includes S.S.Rajamouli, Prabhas, Anushka, Rana Daggubati, and producer Shobu Yarlagadda. After the promotions, the team is said to have had a sour experience with the airlines in which they were travelling back to Hyderabad.

The film's producer Shobu Yarlagadda was seen posting on his Twitter account, that his team was harassed by the airline staff. He tweeted, "Flying to Hyd on @emirates EK526. Airline staff at gate B4 were very rude n harassed our team unnecessarily! Bad attitude n service! I think one of the @emirates staff was being racist.. I fly @emirates regularly n this is 1st time I have come across this kind of attitude"

The airlines reacted to these tweets from Shobu and requested him to send the flight ticket details so that they can look into it.

*Shobu's tweets are not spell-checked

The Tamil Nadu Film Producers Council (TFPC) press meet is currently happening at a star hotel in Chennai. The council, headed by Vishal has now made some important statements, about piracy, theatre ticket prices, and box office figures.

Vishal has made three big announcements through his statement which are as follows:

1. "We have discussed and sent our requirements to State and Central Governments about piracy and theatre ticket rates. If our requirements are not met, we will go on a strike from May 30th and film industry wouldn't function; we will be shutting down the industry.

2. If the Central Government can shut down illegal adult websites, they can definitely do the same for all these movie piracy websites. People do not realize that watching movies online is a crime, and hence we want the Government to make people realize about it. Both Nadigar Sangam and Producers Council are working towards the betterment of Tamil cinema.

3. There will be transparency in the box office figures henceforth after all the terms and conditions are worked out."

Stay tuned to this space and we will update more on this!

Just a few minutes ago, we were informed that veteran Tamil actor Vinu Chakravarthy is no more. He was 72. We are also told that he was taking medical treatment for his health problems for the past three years.

Vinu Chakravarthy, who was born on December 15, 1945, in Usilampatti, had acted in several Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam movies and his filmography includes a mammoth number of 1003. His 1000th film was the Raghava Lawrence directorial Muni and the last film was Balaji Mohan's Vaayai Moodi Pesavum. He is survived by his wife Karnapoo, son Saravanan, and daughter Shanmuga Priya.

His death is a huge loss, not just to the family, but for the entire film fraternity. We pray for the departed soul to rest in peace.

A picture featuring Shankar, Akshay Kumar, Vijay, Vikram, Prabhu Deva, Lyca Productions Raju Mahalingam and others, was released last night (26th April), which instantly went viral over the social media. However, everyone was puzzled and wanted to know why this small get-together happened.

Sources close to us inform that this small meet was arranged by ace director Shankar, as a sign of congratulating his 2.0 star Akshay Kumar on winning the National Award. That is why, Shankar had called the heroes, who have previously worked with him. The list included Vijay (Nanban), Vikram (I and Anniyan), Prabhu Deva (Kadhalan) and others. This was just a friendly meet, and it is not about any new project discussion, as a certain section of media speculate.

This definitely is a humble gesture from Shankar to appreciate and celebrate the real talents and the deserving.

While the Baahubali fans from Chennai and rest of Tamil Nadu were already disappointed with no special premiere shows arranged yesterday [April 27th], here comes a big blow on the release day today. The special early morning shows were reportedly canceled as licenses were not issued to the theaters to play both the Baahubali 2 Tamil and Telugu versions. As of now, both 5 am and 8 am early shows are cancelled in Tamil Nadu. It was also said this is because of a financial issue.

It must be noted many cities outside Tamil Nadu, including Hyderabad, Mangalore, and Bengaluru, screened special shows yesterday [April 27th] even for the Tamil versions. Fans wait positively for the next shows as the TN distributors team are trying their best to screen both the Tamil and Telugu versions soon.

A few hours back, we had reported the Chennai city box office report of Baahubali 2. Now here you have the overall Tamil Nadu box office report.

According to sources, Baahubali 2 is said to have collected around 12 to 13 crores from its opening day in Tamil Nadu. No Thursday premieres and Friday early morning shows is a mild setback for the film. However, even this estimated figure is huge and it is the 2nd biggest opening of 2017 in Tamil Nadu only next to Vijay’s Bairavaa which collected around 16 crores.

Baahubali 2 is likely to have a steady run for the next few weeks in Tamil Nadu and likely to become Blockbuster.