‘Small budget films won’t go for big stars’
Now, with big Hollywood players preferring stars to dub for their major productions, these local artistes seem to be out of work.
I have not tried my hand so far in dubbing for Hollywood films, although offers came my way. There are sets of dubbing artistes who thrive only on dubbing Hollywood films in Tamil over years and also dubbing for TV series. They would never make an attempt to dub for actors in mainstream cinema. Now, with big Hollywood players preferring stars to dub for their major productions, these local artistes seem to be out of work.
However, the Hollywood makers might want to get more visibility and publicity and using star power for pulling audience to the theatres, a trend catching up of late in Tamil cinema.”
On the other hand, veteran writer and producer ARK Rajaraja, who has written the Tamil dubbed versions for more than 200 Telugu films says, “I think stars from Tamil cinema would be approached only by big Hollywood mammoth projects like The Lion King and Avengers etc. They can afford big money for the stars who dub for their movies. But, normal budget English movies would go to the regular dubbing coordinators who are in the field for years. Yet another big avenue for the voice artistes is the Tamil dubbing of big Tollywood films, which are aired on television channels. And, for mobile games like ‘Angry Birds’ sequel, the makers would only opt for Tamil dubbing artistes and not big stars.”