Dominance over Telugu cinema

Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari shattered records upon release, becoming the highest-grossing Telugu film of the time. Such was the hysteria that despite floods in several floods in several areas of the state that year, audiences kept thronging the theatres. Displaying how pure star power could drive a film, Sridevi kept her dominance over Telugu cinema intact. The year had seen actresses such as Vijayashanti, Raadhika and Bhanupriya rising in popularity, but Sridevi proved again who the marquee queen was. Given its huge box-office reception, the film was soon dubbed in Tamil as KAADHAL DEVATHAI (1990), in Malayalam as HAI SUNDARI (1990) and in Hindi as AADMI AUR APSARA (1991). For Telugu audiences, Sridevi had forever become 'Athiloka Sundari'. The film's producer Ashwini Dutt shares a glimpse of here Megastardom: 'We would take more care of Sridevi than the hero. For us, Chiranjeevi ws our own actor but Sridevi was this Bollywood queen, who had come all the way from Bombay to do this film with us. She was bigger than any hero. Sometimes she would shoot with us all night and fly back to Bombay the next morning for a Hindi schedule. She was in demand everywhere.'