Running time not a concern for star films: Telugu producer

Tamil superstar Vijay-starrer "Thalaivaa", which has been dubbed in Telugu as "Anna", is 2 hours and 50 minutes long. Kasi Vishwanath, who has produced the Telugu film, says the lengthy running time of a movie is not a problem when a star actor is associated with it.

"Running time shouldn't be a problem for star films as they have a face value. Audiences come to watch their films because most of our stars are crowd-pullers and, moreover, if the content is good, then people don't mind sitting in a cinema for a longer time," Vishwanath told IANS.

"So many star films in the past have been three hours long, but audiences never had a problem watching them. But what is important is that whether the film has a strong story to keep the audiences hooked throughout the film," he added.

Directed by A.L vijay, "Anna" is releasing along with its Tamil version on Friday. It also features Amala Paul, Ragini Nandwani, Santhanam and Abhimanyu Singh in important roles.

He is confident of the success of "Anna".

"Now that Pawan Kalyan's film is out of the race, I'm confident that 'Anna' will do well. Vijay has a very good market in Telugu. This is a powerful political film and I'm sure it wouldn't disappoint the audiences," said Vishwanath, who has earlier produced Telugu film "Krishna".

Vijay's last two Tamil films "Nanban" and "Thuppakki", which were also dubbed in Telugu, turned out to be duds.