Hindi film viewers shun Tollywood movies

With seasoned star Ravi Teja's starrer 'Tiger Nageswara Rao’ and Ram Pothineni's film ‘Skanda’ failing to elicit positive responses from Hindi film viewers, it looks like the popularity of dubbed Telugu films is losing steam in North India and it is time for Telugu stars and filmmakers to change their strategy.

“Ravi Teja spent a lot of time in Mumbai to promote his film well but the audience thumbed it down since there was no novelty in this routine action saga,” says a Hindi film distributor, who claims that the makers of 'Tiger Nageswara Rao;' spent Rs 4 crores for promotion but in vain. “Producers tried their best but unfortunately things didn’t work out for them,” he adds.  

Other Telugu films that didn’t do well among North Indian audiences are ‘Virupaksha’ and ‘Das Ki Damki. In fact, the former was a blockbuster, while the latter was an average grosser in the two Telugu states. “All Telugu films need not be dubbed into Hindi since the tastes of Telugu and Hindi audiences are quite different. Hence, films that succeed among Telugu audiences, need not work with Hindi film viewers, barring a few exceptions,” he informs.

He claims that a decent enough release in 100-odd theatres across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, UP, and Bihar could help a film to mint money otherwise, it would be difficult to draw in Hindi-speaking viewers. “If films are released in small-town theatres they almost go unnoticed and register poor collections,” he points out.

However, Telugu films that rocked the box office across India were ‘RRR’, ‘Pushpa’, and ‘Karthikeya 2’. ‘It is true that films like ‘RRR’ and ‘Pushpa’ triggered some interest for Telugu films but subsequent releases had no takers.”.

He also cautions about the rise of Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Sunny Deol, and Akshay Kumar. ”Any day, North Indian audiences would love to watch action films of Hindi superstars over Telugu stars, provided they have truly novel content,” he concludes.