Will the decade of 2020s be the dominance of South Indian Films at Indian Cinema?

Film Bahubali’s mega entrance at the world screen (2016) started the prominence of South Indian Films. The quality and the content of SS Rajamouli’s film made everyone awestruck to sit up and see what standards an Indian film can be made of. It was one of the biggest budget films of the decade with a whopping box office collection of Rupees 1683 crores.

The declining clout of Bollywood actors and their films not making a mark at the theatres has made the audience look for better films. The content of these actors turned out to be most perishing in nature and lacking anything fresh. The revenues of Bollywood have been gradually decreasing and that of South Indians films has been gradually increasing. In the Covid-19 affected year of 2020, Bollywood made earnings of 9.3 Billion Rupees (40% of the total revenue) while South Indian Films made 12.3 Billion Rupees (51.5%). (Source Statistica.com).

The Rise of viewing of films on OTT platforms during Covid times has increased manifold. Viewer’s choice to see content in various languages (along with subtitles) has also increased. Oscar winning Director Bong Joon Ho said in his academy award winning speech, “Once you overcome the one-inch barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”.

The quality of content and screenplay of South Indian Films has been far better than that of other language films in the recent years. On a particular day when Pushpa (The Rise), 83’ and Spiderman: No Way Home were released, there were more viewers at Pushpa. Apparently, Amir Khan’s Lal Singh Chaddha was supposed to be released on the same day as Pushpa. Amir Khan carefully shifted his release to April 2022 looking at the pre-release response to Pushpa.

Today’s audience does not wish to see the same stories and remakes since the black and white era. India has cleansed its palate for entertainment and the desires to see content that is fresh and multi-spherical. The audience now has the option to stop the movie in the first five minutes if they find the quality worn out with grey haired story line and ram shackled concepts.

Viewers want to see untold stories which the South Indians master in. Once they have tasted content of high calibre they will refuse to go back to tattered and out moted scripts that mainstream Bollywood is currently serving.

South doesn’t shy away from making films on trending social issues likes Sooriya’s Jai Bhim, Madonne Ashwin and Yogi Babu’s Mandela, Mari Selvaraj’s Pariyerum Perumal BA BL, Fahad Fasil’s Trance or Sukumar’s Rangasthalam. Why has Mainstream Hindi films moved away from making films on current social issues that are plaguing our society? Except for few actors like Ayushman Khurana, Rajkumar Rao and Tapsee Pannu rarely actors are working on current relevant topics pertaining to youth or society. The more Bollywood movies away from reality the more they will move away from audience. Entertainment has to be nearer to people’s aspirations.

Rise of Directors like SS Rajamouli who are high risk takers has given a big boost to the South Film Industry. The amount of research that is being done to bring in quality content is a new trend in South Films. There is an increase in quality directors who are relatively young and are who are making films at low budgets and converting them into a big hit.

Extremely hardworking nature and high professionalism by actors is another added feature of the South film industry. The rise of professionalism is a feature that needs to be imbibed by everyone. Bahubali was made in five years of time, KGF has taken four years and Pushpa has taken two years for part one and will take another two years for part two, RRR took three years for completion. The amount of time and energy directors and producers are taking to complete a project shows their commitment to give quality content to the audience.

There has been progressive growth of several good Film Studios in the South. The availability of Funds for making high budget films is something South Films have made it easy to handle. The faith that the audience has restored in the film makers has led to this kind of development.

It is high time today’s Bollywood catches up with the South Indian film industry or things will go South for them.

-        P Narahari IAS & Aalaya Narahari

16.02.2022