Pushpa, RRR, KGF: Is Bollywood Focusing Too Much On Metro-centric Films

South Indian Films are faring better than Bollywood in North Indian Market— this is the trending topic in the Indian film industry today. Salman Khan in a recent interview quipped, "I wonder why our films are not doing so well in the south. Their films are doing so well here." With this question, he just reflected on the rest of Bollywood's thoughts.

A few months ago, ace producer Boney Kapoor while addressing the press for the success of Valimai, shared similar thoughts. "Bollywood is like your fast-food chains, you get what you order whereas South Indian films are like thalis—there is roti, dal, chawal, sabzi, and chicken. They have a perfect blend of everything," he said in an interview.

Elaborating on the financial aspect of both the industries, he also revealed how Bollywood films fail to fetch profits while a dubbed South Indian film is making more money in the Northern markets. "Mumbai, producers don't even make a fraction of what they are fetching," he added. On average, the dubbed films rights of top south Indian stars are sold for Rs.15 to 20 crore.

Then came Pushpa, the Allu Arjun starrer went on to gross a whopping 365 crores at the box office with the dubbed Hindi version crossing the 100 crore mark. The expectation of the Pushpa sequel is sky high that director Sukumar halted the shoot for a few months to work on script enhancement.

The release of RRR further sealed the road for dubbed films in the North Indian market. The film grossed Rs.1,100 crore at the box office and is expected to have a great final run next week. The phenomenal success has undoubtedly revived the theatrical business. The Ram Charan and Jr NTR-starrer was released on 25th March, the film made a whopping first-weekend box office collection of Rs. 527 crore.

And finally, Yash smashed almost all the records with KGF 2. In its first week, the film made Rs.720 crore, the record number for any film at the box office. The film has so far grossed Rs.800 crore at the box office and is marching towards the Rs.1,000-crore club.

So Is Bollywood on the decline? Lack of interesting content, obsession with Hollywood, negative reputations, and its wanna-be-world-cinema types of content are the key reasons for its inability to draw audiences to theatres. In a race to conquer the metro-centric audience, Bollywood seems to have completely forgotten about the hyper-masculine hero-centric narrative.

On the contrary, the South Indian directos like Rajamouli and Sukumaran have gone ahead to depict even the larger-than-life scenarios with unrealistic scripts just to please the expectations of viewers, rather than follow the new trend in Hindi movies, which are based mostly on realistic events around or short-stories stretched writ large with songs to keep viewers engaged for over an hour. 

As of now, it looks like South Indian films have a clear edge in the pan-India market.