Ram Pothineni made his acting debut with 'Devadasu', which was released in theatres for Sankranthi 2006. The movie, co-starring Ileana D'Souza, was produced at a budget of about Rs 10 Cr. It was directed and produced by YVS Chowdary.
At an event today, YVS revealed that the film's success was not at all easy. "My property was at stake. I had produced it by spending a bomb. It was released on January 11. On the next day, 'Style' was released. That movie had cameos by Chiranjeevi and Nagarjuna. My film collapsed. It was followed by a film starring Siddharth, who was the heartthrob those days. Then came Venkatesh's 'Lakshmi', another movie that bulldozed over 'Devadasu'. My movie had no audience. The distributors of my movie were helpless. I went around towns and tried to fool the audience into believing that people were watching it and loving it. Everything was just a facade. My untiring efforts paid off dividends. By February, my movie picked pace and eventually became a hit. It had a 175-day run in 17 theatres," YVS said.
