South movies strike gold at the Hindi box office

Sanjay Dutt as Adheera in 'KGF: Chapter 2', which released in theatres on April 14, 2022. The Hindi version of the film went on to make more than Rs 400 crore at the box office.(Image: Twitter)

It's no secret that the entertainment industry grew phenomenally in the pandemic months. So rapid and widespread were the changes that analysts are still examining the threads, and where they will lead from here.

One such trend is the remarkable growth of OTT platforms and the seemingly insatiable demand for content for the digital space.

Another massive trend is avenues have really opened up for south cinema over the last two years with the release - and success - of south films in Hindi across North India.

If a big movie like Tamil star Vijay’s Master was dubbed and released in over 500 screens in North India, even smaller budget films like Rocketry, Maanadu and Charlie 777 had a pan-India release and made good profits in the key North Indian circuits.

While big films like RRR, Pushpa, KGF2 and Vikram have seen box office success for their dubbed Hindi versions, so have smaller south films and that begs an important question – what has created this demand for south film content and why are even smaller dubbed south films making big bucks?

Many film distribution companies like UFO Moviez, PEN India, Eros International, SVF, Reliance Entertainment, PVR Pictures and Zee Studios have been key in distributing south film content in the North Indian market.

Pradeep Dwivedi, Group CEO, Eros Media World, explains, “Even in an era dominated by OTT, satellite and cable distribution, the Indian box office market remains a significant port of call for all film makers, and the South Indian market accounts for close to half of the exhibition screens in India. The South Indian filmmakers have been aware of this potential and have been consciously transitioning towards a pan-India release to expand their audience base, driven by quality production and content. The traditional Bollywood/Hindi cinema is still figuring a way to make deeper inroads into the South Indian market, especially the rapidly emerging centres beyond the metro cities. Club this with the pandemic impact, wherein larger audiences got exposed to high quality local as well as international content in multiple languages on OTT streaming platforms, making them appreciably engaged on the production values of content.”

UFO Moviez, for instance, distributed a Vijay film and Rajinikanth film on one hand, and they also distributed medium budget film like STR’s Maanaadu and Rakshit Shetty’s Charlie 777 in North India and these movies struck gold at the box office there.

To be sure, films by directors like Mani Ratnam (Roja, Bombay) and S.S. Rajamouli (Baahubali and Baahubali 2) had opened up the dubbed-in-Hindi market pre-pandemic. But these examples were few and far between; remakes of south films were predominantly how stories travelled (one example is Saathiya, which was a remake of the Telugu film Alaipayuthey). Now, post-pandemic, it seems the floodgates have opened and south Indian filmmakers are reaping the rewards.

The potential for south films – big and small – in the North can be measured in two ways, explains Pankaj Jaysinh, CEO - Film Distribution, UFO Moviez. He says, “One is, of course, financial and the other is the reach of a particular movie in terms of the number of cinemas (it's) released in. Majority of the fairly decent movies would collect at least Rs 7 to 10 crore in the North Indian market and these good films can release in at least 50 to 100 screens.”

In the last decade, we have seen many south language films being dubbed in Hindi and played across television channels. The Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada film industries have always had their own market – in India and overseas – and have flourished despite the presence of a strong Bollywood film industry. While Hindi films with top stars do have a market in the metros in south India, the tier 2 and 3 southern cities with largely single screens are all ruled by local language cinema. Moreover, the audience in the south states are movie star-crazy and with their wide network of fan clubs, have ensured that an organic marketing structure is firmly in place. In the North Indian circuit, Hindi-speaking audiences in single screen-towns have been watching dubbed versions of south language films for a few years now.

“I truly believe this is a process that is long overdue but better late than never,” says Akshaye Rathi, director, Aashirwad Theatres Pvt Ltd. “We have seen Hollywood films – which are alien to our sensibilities - come and make inroads at the grassroot level in the Indian markets and if that can happen, I wonder why Vijay, Allu Arjun, NTR or Ram Charan can’t make inroads in the northern parts of the country that they live in. Ultimately, I think it’s the storytelling which has to be relatable to the people across these linguistic and cultural borders. We’ve recently seen this with the tremendous success of Charlie 777 about a pet dog and Madhavan’s Rocketry about a rocket scientist from Kerala.”

There are multiple reasons for the success of south language films in the Hindi-speaking territories, says Jaysinh. “The foremost aspect is social media and how social media is able to spread the word on good films. The traditional methods of marketing have been overridden by social media marketing. One such movie that was impacted by social media was Charlie 777 – it opened small like in about 300 screens and by Saturday and Sunday, the collections were twice as much as the previous day. And the number of shows got adjusted accordingly. Now, we don’t distinguish between south content and Hindi – if the content is good, social media will create awareness and the movie will do well. Secondly, the number of screens that have come up in individual properties - the multiplexes – are typically four and more. With a larger number of screens, good content is also required by the chain operator and thus, there is room for experimentation. So an operator can release a Malayalam film and see how it does. Moreover, with distributors like UFO Moviez, a transparent corporate body present pan-India, producers in the south have to deal with just one entity unlike earlier. We release the film trailers across our network which gives the movie enough recognition before release and the audience’s decision-making is influenced by this as well.”

One key aspect that all distributors talk about when appreciating south language films is the quality of content that has helped in expanding their market in the Hindi belt. “The recent movies from South have been a few very high-quality productions, coupled with compelling storylines and hence they have resonated amazingly with the viewers across the country. We believe that quality of production will play a key role in determining whether the audiences will come to the theatres or want to wait for the movie to stream on the OTT platform. The bar has been raised by Southern filmmakers and it augurs well for the entire industry to aspire to better benchmarks,” says Eros Media World's Dwivedi.