Flower nahi fire hai: Hindi dubbed versions open up a box office goldmine for South movies

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Once confined to one-off sensations like Pushpa, South Indian movies are now drawing huge audiences in the Hindi heartland, as reflected in their box office numbers.

From Mohanlal's recent big-budget venture L2: Empuraan to smaller movies like Marco, more films down South are releasing films in Hindi dubbed versions.

“It is not just big-budget Southern language films like Pushpa 2 that are being dubbed in Hindi but smaller movies like Marco, Sita Ramam, and Kantara are also getting their Hindi dubbed versions because filmmakers and producers know there is acceptance of these movies in the North India market because as people are appreciating the different kind of storytelling," said Amit Sharma, managing director, Miraj Cinemas.

Dubbing South Indian films in Hindi took off post pandemic, he said.

The percentage of Hindi dubbed films has nearly doubled, noted film producer Anand Pandit.

Aneesh Dev, who had the distribution rights of Marco, said what was a dead market (Hindi speaking belts) a few years back has become a box office gold mine for many South Indian language movies. "The contribution of Hindi dubbed versions has increased significantly and will grow 20-25 percent more in 2025," he said.

Hindi dubbed strategy

With a modest budget of Rs 25 crore, Marco became the first Malayalam language A (adult)-rated film to earn over Rs 100 crore at the worldwide box office. Dev and his team took baby steps for the film's release, especially in the Hindi speaking markets, and the efforts paid off with the Hindi version contributing more than they had expected.

"Marco, originally made in Malayalam, was dubbed in other languages like Hindi. From around Rs 60 crore coming from the India box office, 23 percent, or around Rs 13-14 crore, came from the Hindi version. A territory (Hindi speaking belts) which was almost dead till now with only 5-6 percent contribution has now gone to over 20 percent share," Dev said.

The makers did a soft launch of Marco released on December 20 last year with 89 shows, which too were allotted after a lot of struggle as exhibitors were unsure if a Malayalam film would work especially when the movie faced competition from Pushpa 2 and Baby John.

Dev turned to a different release strategy of opting for smaller cinemas. "We requested smaller cinemas like 60-70-seater theatres to play our movie. We asked for the smallest screen because we didn’t want to get the biggest cinema and then see a 10 percent occupancy. We wanted smaller screens with better occupancy. We started sending our people to get feedback for the movie. We got good reviews. That encouraged us. Then we got an analysis of the movie’s traction among people on a day-to-day basis like the demographics of the audience. That way we increased our shows. Starting with 89 cinemas, we moved to 1,200 screens in three weeks."

Marco's success, especially of its Hindi version, resulted in higher interest among other distributors for another venture Aghathiyaa, which has been produced by Dev along with another company. Aghathiyaa was distributed in North India by Cinepolis India while the Tamil language version was done by PVR Inox.

"We are seeing a change in the way dubbed movies are looked at in the market. Aghathiyaa (originally a Tamil language film) got a pan-India release in all major states in nearly 600 screens. The screen distribution was over 150 screens in North India, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and over 200 screens in Tamil Nadu along with 45 and 40 in Karnataka and Kerala respectively," Dev said.

Higher share

He added the contribution of the Hindi dubbed version for a medium-budget movie like Marco was over 20 percent but for a movie like Pushpa 2 out of the Rs 1,200 crore India box office business, around Rs 800-900 crore came from the Hindi version and around Rs 300 crore came from the Telugu version.

The Hindi dubbed version turned out to be a saviour for the Hindi box office last year. Hindi films earned 13 percent less in 2024, but that included Hindi dubbed versions of some South Indian films, according to media consulting firm Ormax report. It estimated that theatrical revenues of original Hindi films have reduced by 37 percent from Rs 5,100 crore to Rs 3,200 crore if the Hindi dubbed versions are excluded.

Mindset change

So, what's working for the Hindi dubbed versions?

Dev pointed to the improvement in the quality of dubbing. "10 years back, dubbing would sync 60-70 percent with the lip movements; nowadays it appears to be 100 percent. We always had good dubbing talent but we did not have money for quality dubbing. With good box office money coming for the dubbed versions, budgets are increasing which is going into good quality dubbing."

Dubbing a film in one language with premium dubbing artists costs anywhere between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 30 lakh and takes around 60 days to complete the process.

There is good money coming in for Hindi dubbed versions of South Indian films because of the change in mindset, Dev said.

"I used to provide movies to TV channels some 10 years back, and at that time 98 percent of Bollywood movies would be slotted for the fixed point chart (FCP), which is the programming schedule for TV channels. Only 2-3 percent of other language movies were part of the FCP. From 2-3 percent FPC, now South movies dubbed in Hindi have gone to 65 percent plus. So, the audience was always there. The big difference is in the mindset. People earlier used to look down upon dubbed movies. That is not the case anymore," he said.

He also shared how he used to gauge the popularity of movies. "I would show auto rickshaw drivers some movies on my phone. Back then most people knew South stars like Nagarjuna, and Chiranjeevi because their movies were shown on TV.  Most didn't know Rajinikanth. He became a massive hit among the Hindi speaking audience after the movie Robot."

Pandit said it is the quality of storytelling, relatability and the unusual themes that South Indian cinema experiments with. "Some regions in India are showing a strong preference for the diverse and compelling content of the South because audiences are finding something in these narratives that resonates deeply with them."