In a first, Balayya to test waters in North India

Nandamuri Balakrishna has a task ahead since he has to woo Hindi film viewers for his film ‘Bhagavanth Kesari’ which has been dubbed in Hindi and is set to release across India very soon. “Balakrishna didn’t show much interest in Hindi film viewers for many years. But this time he is determined to grab more eyeballs. Probably, he believes that ‘Bhagavanath Kesari’ has a relevant message about the girl child and sentiment drama revolving around a middle-aged uncle and niece along with loads action would be an ideal outing for him in Hindi belt,” says a Hindi distributor who claims that Balakrishna has to recover more than Rs 5 crores in Hindi region to break-even in the days to come.

Earlier, Balakrishna claimed that he had dubbed for himself in Hindi language and described it as a first in his career. "I have lent my voice for the dubbed version. This is the first time that I have dubbed in Hindi and check out my command over the Hindi language," the 'Legend' actor said at an event.

Interestingly, his earlier blockbusters like 'Legend', ‘Akhanda’ and ‘Veerasimha Reddy weren't dubbed in Hindi despite North Indian audiences adoring Telugu action films. “Maybe, he has more hopes on story-driven “Bhagavanth…’ to woo Hindi film viewers so his earlier movies didn’t have much exposure in Bollywood,” he adds.

Just recently, Ravi Teja promoted his film ‘Tiger Nageswara Rao’ aggressively in Mumbai and also participated in varied shows to promote his action adventure. “Hindi audiences are taking Telugu films lightly these days since Bollywood stars like SRK, Sunny Deol, and Salman Khan are back in action and dishing out anger-driven films. It will be a big challenge for Balakrishna to draw in an audience in this dicey situation,” he concludes.