Why Bollywood’s big guns are a damp squib in south

Bollywood glitter is failing to sparkle southern cinemas as before, as local movies high on action and drama draw away audiences hooked to single-screen themes.

Trade experts said that after Jawan released last year, no Hindi movie has managed to draw big numbers in Tamil Nadu Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, once lucrative markets for commercial films featuring top stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan. With mainstream commercial elements missing from most Bollywood films, southern movies continue to dominate their native states.

Box office numbers reflect the trend

Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan that earned over ₹512 crore in domestic box office collections fetched less than ₹18 crore from Tamil Nadu and Kerala put together, and another ₹38 crore from the Telugu-speaking states. Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Animal clocked over ₹462 crore across India, but only ₹6.81 crore from Tamil Nadu and Kerala and about ₹40.22 crore from the Telugu states.

“The market for Hindi films in the south is getting smaller and smaller because the southern states are so strong with content in their own languages, and there are so many films getting made there that it’s difficult for Hindi movies to even manage too many screens at the time of release,” Rahul Puri, managing director, Mukta Arts and Mukta A2 Cinemas said.

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While Jawan was an exception with nearly ₹20 crore from Tamil Nadu and Kerala together, Puri said hits like Pathaan are more indicative of how Hindi films are doing in the south. Moreover, Hindi films are targeting different audience segments with their experimental storylines and up-market treatment, versus the mass-market viewers who pay relatively lower ticket rates and flock to single-screen cinemas in the south.

“Unlike southern filmmakers who are roping in Bollywood stars to feature in their projects, Hindi films aren’t really getting southern stars to appear in their films yet,” Puri pointed out. Over the past few years, names such as Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Saif Ali Khan and Janhvi Kapoor have been signed up for films to be originally made in southern languages, thus making a conscious attempt to reach out to their fan bases in the north.

Roadblocks

Calling Jawan an exception that did as well as a tier-two Tamil star film, Ruban Mathivanan of GK Cinemas in Chennai said audiences are now selective about what they want to watch in theatres and stay away from anything with excessive social messaging or dark themes. “All Hindi films target multiplex audiences because the market in the north is dominated by those chains. In Tamil Nadu, however, out of 1,000 theatres, about 150 are multiplexes. So, the mindset of filmmakers has to change; people are willing to come to watch entertaining stuff because the language barrier doesn’t really exist anymore,” Mathivanan said.

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Independent trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai agreed that things were different for Hindi films releasing in the south until five years ago compared to now when there is zero buzz for even films headlined by established names like Akshay Kumar. While the actor has seen a spate of duds after covid, action comedy Sooryavanshi that earned close to ₹200 crore when released soon after the lockdown in 2021, clocked only ₹1.71 crore from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and ₹9.78 crore from the Telugu belt.

“A lot of glamour around films made in the south is centered around lead stars and the music. For Hindi films, however, the stars appear typecast in specific roles and over-exposed due to multiple appearances while there is no buzz around the music,” Pillai explained.

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