Pushpa The Rise managed to surprise even the makers as they did not expect it to make Rs. 100 crores at the Hindi box office. Allu Arjun surprised even himself with the success but the actor is happy.
He showed how happy and content he is, that his hardwork is paying rich dividends. Sukumar expressed his surprise saying that he underestimated Allu Arjun’s popularity. He said that even Nepal distributors asked for Pushpa prints and that amazed him.
We all know what RRR is doing at Hindi box office. It is able to withstand the storm of The Kashmir Files that Akshay Kumar’s Bacchan Pandey failed to do.
Movie is heading for Rs. 200 crores Nett and the trade is expecting Rs. 250 crores Nett by the end of its run. This is as massive as Kabir Singh success and as big as Ranbir Singh’s Simmba movie collections.
We hope you have understood the grandeur of the success that RRR managed to achieve. Whether you attribute this success to Ram Charan or Jr. NTR or SS Rajamouli or the entire team, it is Telugu Cinema that is shining India wide. Radhe Shyam also took decent opening better than John Abraham’s Attack during the first weekend in Hindi markets.
Why are Hindi people looking towards Telugu Cinema and Telugu heroes? To understand this, we need to go and check the history. Historically, ever since Jeetendra Kapoor became a successful actor, we can see Tollywood directors going to Bollywood.
K. Raghavendra Rao’s elder brother K. Bapayya settled in Hindi Cinema during the 1980’s. Raghavendra Rao himself made few films in Hindi. Himmatwala is his biggest success in Hindi. The movie stars Jeetendra and Sridevi in lead roles.
Bapayya and Jeetendra formed a formidable combination with hits like Dildar, Dil Aur Deewar, Takkar, Mawaali and few others. They even remade Patala Bhairavi film as Patal Bhairavi. One can argue that Krishna’s Padmalaya Studios produced bulk of their remakes from Telugu Cinema with Jeetendra as lead and hence Telugu directors got the chance to go to Hindi Cinema.
Yes, they did. But Hindi film lovers accepted South Indian films remakes that were originally directed by Bhagyaraja, Bharatiraja, Balachander. The acceptance of Telugu Cinema remakes came as a surprise for Hindi Cinema pundits but the action thrillers from Telugu Cinema and their remakes made Mithun Chakraborty, Jackie Shroff into leading stars in 80’s after Jeetendra as Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra started becoming old.
At the fag end of 80’s, Hindi filmmakers tried to make films like South Indian filmmakers but they have failed to understand commercial cinema like Telugu filmmakers did. Action lovers lapped up Telugu masala films.
Then, came the iconic Khan trio – Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Govinda, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Sunil Shetty in the 90’s and even film going public taste has changed. Akshay Kumar, Govinda, Sunil Shetty still remade South films like Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff. Sunny Deol, Sanjay Dutt emerged as box office action stars with Rajkumar Santhoshi, Subhash Ghai films in the 90’s.
Shah Rukh Khan became too popular in mid-90’s and Bollywood decided to concentrate on family movies. Last big action film that became hit for Bollywood during Khan domination is Gadar Ek Prem Katha. Slowly, again by the end of 2000’s Aamir Khan with Ghajini remake opened doors for action films and remakes from South.
This enabled current grand returns for dubbed Telugu films in Hindi markets. How? Ram Gopal Varma remade his Shiva in 1989 and that became a huge hit. RGV shifted to Mumbai and made Raat, Satya, Rangeela, Bhoot, Company, Sarkar kind of films. He did not make commercial hit films in Telugu even though he tried with Drohi/Antam, Govinda Govinda, Kshnakshnam.
All of them became hits in repeat releases or on TV. His Deyyam also failed but as a producer with Money he saw big success. He is the second Telugu director after Bapayya to settle in Hindi Cinema after big blockbuster start in Telugu Cinema.
Mani Ratnam became huge in Indian Cinema because of Nayakan, Geethanjali, Dalapathi, Roja, Bombay showcasing commercial cinema with purpose. He came up with different subjects and world class technical standards that entire Indian Cinema started respecting him. Shah Rukh Khan’s Dil Se earned him International respect too.
At the same time, Shankar and Priyadarshan were looked at by Hindi producers to remake their South hits. Priyadarshan hit jackpot with Hera Pheri and revived struggling Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty careers.
Akshay Kumar took the slot of Govinda as the latter was struggling and Priyadarshan with Malayalam comedy film remakes established great market in Hindi.
So, the Hindi public got used to watching South Indian films in a way, as remakes from the early 1980’s. While there was a decline in mid-90’s and early 2000’s, the trend got revived by mid-2000’s.
Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar made their flourishing careers out of the remakes. In the meanwhile, Nagarjuna’s Don No.1, Meri Jung dubbed versions of Don and Mass, respectively, became huge Satellite sensations.
This forced struggling movie channels to encourage buy more dubbed films. Bollywood action films became boring copies of Hollywood films and hence, people got used to watching dubbed films on TV.
As the digital trend grew, few distributors started uploading south Indian dubbed films on YouTube and they created sensation. Hence, we can say that the current generation of Hindi film viewers got accustomed to watching Telugu actors too.
If a good film made by any filmmaker in India comes out with great content, we can say that RRR and Pushpa, KGF Chapter 1, Baahubali franchise kind of success will be easy for them to replicate as well.
Bollywood film makers have to understand that action movies need good back story and connectivity to the roots. If they start to imbibe that in their writing then they can also give such big hits like RRR, Baahubali. For now, their lack of understanding is helping Telugu filmmakers to thrive.
In fact, even Telugu film lovers and critics did not predict such massive success for Pushpa and RRR. This shows how Hindi public is yearning for good content to come their way.
Telugu filmmakers should not take it easy and say if RRR can work their film can also. Saaho made money but Radhe Shyam did not. Even with Prabhas in lead, Radhe Shyam struggled. So, decent content and great visuals with likeable stars, good performances are must for any film to repeat Pushpa or RRR level success. Please remember that.
