As mentioned in the previous section, the surge of dubbing films has been a relief to the Hindi theater market, which is recovering from failures and also these films are creating a challenge to the supremacy of Bollywood.
SS RajMouli‘s film Bahubali accelerated the movement in the 21st century. The first part of the Bahubali series, Bahubali Part 1 collected more than 100 crores at the Bollywood box office, followed by Bahubali 2, which took Bollywood by storm. The film went on to become the highest grosser of all time, collecting more than 500 crores from the Hindi market alone.
Later, Prashant Neel‘s Kannada film KGF first part was also a hit and collected around Rs 40 crores from Bollywood. KGF:Chapter 2 collected more than Rs 400 crore from the Bollywood market alone.
SS Rajmouli’s other film RRR has collected more than 300 crores from the Bollywood market alone. This performance of RRR came at a time when vernacular films could not even achieve half of that.
SS Rajamouli‘s track record, KGF‘s sequel tag helped the above mentioned films grab the market, but later dubbed films like Karthikeya 2 are only tier3 range hero films in Tollywood. The film earned around Rs 40 crore from the Bollywood market.
Later Kannada film Kantara grossed over 80 crores and is still rocking the Bollywood box office. It is also noteworthy that Mani Ratnam‘s film Ponniyin Selvan has achieved flawless collection from the Bollywood market.
Allu Arjun starrer Pushpa accelerated the momentum of dubbing films into Bollywood. At a time when TV dubbing rights were sold before release and theatrical release was not possible, Pushpa was dubbed and released at the last minute and earned more than 120 crores from the Bollywood market alone. Its ripples can be seen flooding social media platforms even today. Pushpa, is an average collected film in the Telugu market, but was a huge hit in hindi belt. That is where Pushpa becomes a miracle.
Along with the above films, Prabhas‘ Saaho, Shankar-Rajinikanth team’s 2.0 were also successful in hindi belt. It is noteworthy that such an influx of other language films comes at a time when Bollywood is waiting for a hit.
Audiences ignoring regional films and applauding dubbing films is perhaps a headache for Bollywood. In such a situation, the quality of the film should be checked and that discussion can be in the next part.
To be continuedβ¦
