 Chulyukin's third comedy "Royal Regatta" (1966) featured his wife Natalya Kustinskaya in the main role but wasn't as successful as his previous works; she left him shortly after and later claimed this was the main reason he switched from light comedy films to war and children's movies, gaining the Lenin Komsomol Prize in 1979.During 1970–1980s, he worked a lot as a screenwriter as well as an artistic director at the Alania television company (North Ossetia), at the time the center of all filmmaking at the North Caucasus, developing the national movie industry.He also taught at VGIK since 1982.