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India’s entertainment landscape is going through some radical churn, fuelled by the multiplex revolution and increasing ease of access (online as well as offline) to content in a board spectrum of languages. As Malayalam actor Dulquer Salmaan, who made his Bollywood debut this month, recently said, everyone’s watching everything.
Meanwhile, T-Series prepares to present Baahubali lead Prabhas in an ultra-expensive spy thriller called Saaho that is being shot simultaneously in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. The preponderance of such “cross-pollination” is a clear reflection of the fact that Hindi is no longer the face of Indian entertainment. Cinema and television soaps once pejoratively described as “regional language entertainment” are not only beginning to break geographic barriers to go “national”, but also garnering enough respect as entertainment markets with concrete potential.
The story is just as impressive overseas. Telugu and Tamil films have pretty much overtaken Bollywood as the face of Indian cinema in the United States and Malaysia, thanks to blockbusters like Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, Mahanati and Mersal. The dominoes in line to flip include movie markets in the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Netherlands, Singapore and even, South America.
“The South was always a strong market, but there has now been an upsurge in industries in Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab and Gujarat,” said Nikhil Sane, business head, Viacom18 Motion Pictures Marathi and Colors Marathi. Gujarati films, for example, registered a 44% increase over 2016 in terms of transactions on BookMyShow. Meanwhile, the Bengali film industry notched up its highest grossing film ever last year, an action adventure called Amazon Obhijaan that made ₹486.3 million worldwide.
In the age of globalization where relocation far away from one’s roots is a reality, people still want to know about their communities, said Surinder Singh Jodhka, professor of sociology at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU. “Humans are always more comfortable with who they are and want to reproduce themselves the same way, instead of assimilating into western culture,” he added.
“As far as quality of content goes, regional (cinema) has always been up there. What has emerged in the last few years is our ability to commercialize and package in a much more noticeable way, which has resulted in bigger box office numbers,” said Mangesh Kulkarni, business head-Marathi Film Division, ZEE Studios.
Kulkarni refers to the fact that regional films have been executed differently off late. ZEE’s own Marathi blockbuster Sairat, a tale of star-crossed lovers, while being a hard-hitting take on the caste system, was riddled with the trappings of a typical Bollywood blockbuster —chartbuster music, slow-motion chase sequences, great fights and drama, all of which fetched instant attention.
Meanwhile, the Baahubali franchise, characterized by spectacular war scenes and dazzling special effects, not only reinstated faith in the enduring quality of hardcore commercial Indian storytelling but also shed its regional connotations by simultaneously releasing Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam versions, notching up the highest screen count ever for a film made in the country.
Dubbed blockbusters
To put it quite crudely, for the man on the street in north India, regional cinema is the dubbed south Indian potboiler playing on a Hindi movie channel. The biggest blockbusters on television in 2017 were two dubbed Telugu films—while Baahubali 2 set an all-time record for TV viewership, with even its repeat airing generating higher numbers than the second most watched film, Dangal, the big surprise was Allu Arjun’s action comedy Duvvada Jagannadham that beat many Hindi films like Tubelight, Kaabiland Raees.
Given Bollywood’s increasing affinity towards urban-centric narratives, these well-crafted dubbed films that started appearing on Hindi movie channels around 2009 make for great entertainment with their escapist themes of vendetta, justice and revenge. These may not be the best movies but as Rangan said, they exposed the stars of the region to a larger population, before the streaming platforms started helping people catch up with non-Hindi content two to three years ago.
“The number and satellite prices for dubbed south Indian movies on Hindi channels have gone up by seven to eight times in the past two years,” Krishna said. “Though dubbed, these films are easier to grasp and people tend to watch the whole movie. The dubbed version of a big Telugu film can be sold for anything between ₹15-20 crore today.”
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Meanwhile, T-Series prepares to present Baahubali lead Prabhas in an ultra-expensive spy thriller called Saaho that is being shot simultaneously in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. The preponderance of such “cross-pollination” is a clear reflection of the fact that Hindi is no longer the face of Indian entertainment. Cinema and television soaps once pejoratively described as “regional language entertainment” are not only beginning to break geographic barriers to go “national”, but also garnering enough respect as entertainment markets with concrete potential.
The story is just as impressive overseas. Telugu and Tamil films have pretty much overtaken Bollywood as the face of Indian cinema in the United States and Malaysia, thanks to blockbusters like Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, Mahanati and Mersal. The dominoes in line to flip include movie markets in the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Netherlands, Singapore and even, South America.
“The South was always a strong market, but there has now been an upsurge in industries in Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab and Gujarat,” said Nikhil Sane, business head, Viacom18 Motion Pictures Marathi and Colors Marathi. Gujarati films, for example, registered a 44% increase over 2016 in terms of transactions on BookMyShow. Meanwhile, the Bengali film industry notched up its highest grossing film ever last year, an action adventure called Amazon Obhijaan that made ₹486.3 million worldwide.
In the age of globalization where relocation far away from one’s roots is a reality, people still want to know about their communities, said Surinder Singh Jodhka, professor of sociology at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU. “Humans are always more comfortable with who they are and want to reproduce themselves the same way, instead of assimilating into western culture,” he added.
“As far as quality of content goes, regional (cinema) has always been up there. What has emerged in the last few years is our ability to commercialize and package in a much more noticeable way, which has resulted in bigger box office numbers,” said Mangesh Kulkarni, business head-Marathi Film Division, ZEE Studios.
Kulkarni refers to the fact that regional films have been executed differently off late. ZEE’s own Marathi blockbuster Sairat, a tale of star-crossed lovers, while being a hard-hitting take on the caste system, was riddled with the trappings of a typical Bollywood blockbuster —chartbuster music, slow-motion chase sequences, great fights and drama, all of which fetched instant attention.
Meanwhile, the Baahubali franchise, characterized by spectacular war scenes and dazzling special effects, not only reinstated faith in the enduring quality of hardcore commercial Indian storytelling but also shed its regional connotations by simultaneously releasing Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam versions, notching up the highest screen count ever for a film made in the country.
Dubbed blockbusters
To put it quite crudely, for the man on the street in north India, regional cinema is the dubbed south Indian potboiler playing on a Hindi movie channel. The biggest blockbusters on television in 2017 were two dubbed Telugu films—while Baahubali 2 set an all-time record for TV viewership, with even its repeat airing generating higher numbers than the second most watched film, Dangal, the big surprise was Allu Arjun’s action comedy Duvvada Jagannadham that beat many Hindi films like Tubelight, Kaabiland Raees.
Given Bollywood’s increasing affinity towards urban-centric narratives, these well-crafted dubbed films that started appearing on Hindi movie channels around 2009 make for great entertainment with their escapist themes of vendetta, justice and revenge. These may not be the best movies but as Rangan said, they exposed the stars of the region to a larger population, before the streaming platforms started helping people catch up with non-Hindi content two to three years ago.
“The number and satellite prices for dubbed south Indian movies on Hindi channels have gone up by seven to eight times in the past two years,” Krishna said. “Though dubbed, these films are easier to grasp and people tend to watch the whole movie. The dubbed version of a big Telugu film can be sold for anything between ₹15-20 crore today.”
https://www.livemint.com/Consumer/t...croll&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=scroll
