Over the last few years we’ve seen South stars like Prabhas, Yash, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan and Jr NTR making an impact on the Hindi box office. An interesting trend this year is for actors from the Hindi belt to turn South.
Lately, Bollywood stars are seen aggressively promoting their films in the South. And it’s proving to be effective. After Shah Rukh Khan registered a huge success with Jawan, it’s now Ranbir Kapoor’s turn. Despite criticism, his latest release Animal turned out to be a blockbuster.
‘Welcome trend’
South filmmakers are predicting that more actors will be taking the South box office plunge. “Our Tollywood stars have created an impact in Hindi; now they (Hindi actors) are trying to make inroads into the South. SRK started with Jawan and now Ranbir has done it with Animal,” says Dil Raju, who is the distributor for Animal in the Telugu-speaking states.
He describes this as a ‘welcome trend’ indicating that the film industry has truly become global. “I think this is the first time a South director (Sandeep Reddy Vanga) is making a film with a Bollywood star (Ranbir) and creating such a buzz at the Telugu box office. When films from other languages are setting the cash registers ringing, indeed the film industry is becoming global,” he adds.
Tectonic shift?
Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal is expected to gross more than Rs 30 crore over its first weekend in Telugu-speaking states. The actor promoted his film by making multiple trips to cities down south. For his earlier film Brahmastra too, Ranbir collaborated with various directors and actors in the South for a firm footing in the South market.
Producer-distributor and two-times National Award- winning writer G. Dhananjayan believes that the trend of Hindi films doing well in the South isn’t new.
