Billa (2009 film)

It was during the shooting of Vayassunami song for Kantri in Ramoji Film City, NTR asked me if I were interested watching Tamil Billa film. He got a print mailed from Chennai. He wanted to watch it because it was done by legend NTR as 'Yugandhar'. He said that if we like the movie, we might remake in Telugu immediately after Kantri film. I loved the film, but opined that NTR might not suit the role at this stage of his career and told him frankly about it.

I still had the idea of remaking Billa. The same producer came up with the proposal of remaking it with Ravi Teja as hero. I watched the movie again with Ravi Teja in my mind. I modified certain scenes to suit him. Then I opined that a high budget film might not work out with Ravi Teja as hero. The producer will end up suffering for the kind of budget we ask for. Hence we collectively decided not to make the movie.

I got an offer to work with Prabhas. I told him another story and he didn't look excited enough. I casually asked him if he saw Billa. I told him that it has all elements of commercial hits like Rowdy Alludu and Donga Mogudu which Chiranjeevi has done in his peak time of the career. He loved it and I told him the script changes. We need a comfortable producer who can spend lot of money at the same time who doesn't pressurize us. Prabhas suggested that we should make it on his home banner Gopi Krishna Movies. I told him another script which is equally exciting. It would cost only 60% of what Billa would have cost. But Prabhas wanted to make Billa. We narrated it to Krishnam Raju and he loved it. I wanted Krishnam Raju to do the role of police commissioner. I wanted to capture the first combination of Prabhas and Krishnam Raju.

I did some changes in screenplay. I made Billa an out and out commercial entertainer. I visualized every shot before making the movie. We went to Malaysia and selected the required locations a month in advance.[4]

Meher Ramesh explained his casting decisions in an interview.

Anushka: I knew Sweety (Anushka Shetty) even before she entered movies. It was me who introduced her to Puri Jagannadh for Super. I told her that she is going to be paired up with Prabhas and I need her in best shape. She worked hard and when I met her after two months, she slimmed down a lot.

Hansika: I told Hansika Motwani that a slot done by Kareena Kapoor in Don is available and asked her if she is interested in doing that role. She trusted me and told yes immediately.

Namitha: I didn't have Namitha in my mind for that character. I tried many new faces. Namitha asked me that she want to re-enter Telugu films with Billa. She slimmed down for this role and we had a photo shoot before signing her.

Supreet: Supreet is highly impressive as Katraju in Chhatrapati. He matched the masculinity of Prabhas in that film. I cast him as an associate of Prabhas in this film. He looks cool in black suits.

Rahman: Tamil actor Rahman did an important role as an associate of Krishnam Raju in this film. I noticed that he is also a perfectionist like Prakash Raj. He learnt each and every word of his dialogue before hand. He uttered all Telugu dialogues with no prompting.[4]

Most of the Indian and Bollywood films shot in Malaysia has William Wong as action director. But I have good tuning with Stun Siva. I employed Stun Siva as fight master for Billa and we took the help of William Wong whenever we required. We shot a chase that never came in Indian screen before. It will be like watching terrific chases in Bond flicks. We used choppers for 15 days. When we asked for 2 helicopters, producer granted us four. This credit should go to producer D Narendra and production designer Krishna. We stayed in Malaysia for 3 months at a stretch to shoot this movie.

I wanted to have either Sameer Reddy or Chota K Naidu for cinematography. But dates of both of them were not available. Not many people know about Soundar Rajan who worked as an associate to KV Anand in the past. He also worked for four forgettable Tamil flicks. He got busy in doing commercial ads. We wanted to shoot Billa with Super 35 camera. When I met him for the first time, we shared good vibes. We spoke for 5 hours about moviemaking. I signed him without looking at his work because I realized that he is extremely talented through our discussion. He is a friend of Vishnu Vardhan who directed Tamil Billa. We met Vishnu Vardhan and I informed him the changes I made in Billa script. He was impressed with it. Soundar is an excellent technician with amazing sense of using lenses. He is one of the reasons why Billa is made in less time with more quality.

Billa is shot in 104 working days. We shot this film in unpredictable weather of Malaysia. The total runtime of the final cut is 2 hours and 30 minutes.[4]