Early in his career, producer Dil Raju showed an exemplary talent for spotting superb stories. 'Bommarillu', 'Arya', 'Kotha Bangaru Lokam', 'Parugu' and 'Brindavanam' are the major examples. Even 'Dil' and 'Bhadra' were well-written scripts despite their heavy tilt towards the cinema trends of the day.
It seems producer Swapna Dutt of Swapna Cinema is showing a similar knack of late, becoming the Lady Dil Raju of Tollywood. 'Yevade Subrahmanyam' in 2015 and 'Mahanati' in 2018 were stories she had faith in and ensured that they were told on a rich canvas. The former is a story her father C Aswini Dutt had little enthusiasm for. Yet, Swapna and her sister Priyanka Dutt went ahead and brought respect to Vyjayanthi Movies, which had not been going great for many years due to flops like 'Shakti'.
'Jathi Ratnalu' happened mainly because of Nag Ashwin, while 'Sita Ramam', again, was powered by Swapna's quick thinking and knack for picking talents. As per director Hanu Raghavapudi, both Dulquer Salman and Mrunal Thakur were Swapna's picks. Of course, 'Mahanati' had sown the seeds of a strong Dulquer-Vyjayanthi bond. Only a producer who thinks out of the box could have brought in Mrunal, a newcomer in Telugu.
Swapna and Priyanka didn't have it good in their early phases. Their flops included 'Sarocharu', 'Om Shanti', among others. Their second innings, on the other hand, is firing from all cylinders!
