Regional movies post success without Hindi market focus

Mumbai: Several local language movies that scored financial success in the past two years, particularly those focused on their home audience and not the Hindi market, reflect a course correction in the way regional films are conceived.

After a series of failed attempts at creating pan-India films by relying on stardom, scale and Hindi dubbing, regional movies are increasingly focusing on their core audience, and if the content is strong, they travel across markets, said exhibitors, producers and distributors.

The rising focus of streaming platforms on box-office success as a key criterion in digital rights valuation, universal appeal of culturally rooted stories and reasonably good awareness of regional cinema have contributed to the notable successes of regional films across markets, they said.


Films such as Bethlehem Kudumba Unit (Malayalam), Irumudi (Telugu), Deool Band 2 (Marathi), Tourist Family (Tamil), Su From So (Kannada) and Laalo (Gujarati) recorded massive successes without Hindi dubbing. Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, made on a budget of less than ₹25 crore, collected ₹156 crore in India alone.

Increasingly, digital platforms are taking content-oriented films in any language into the spotlight. This has added to success stories of regional films across languages, said exhibitors.

"Today, good content in any language travels, thanks to the active global digital network of audiences. Well-made regional films have benefited from this. Even a small-budget film, Hanuman Ansh, has travelled and is doing well even in Australia, New Zealand and the US," said Devang Sampat, managing director at movie-theatre chain Cinepolis India.

These regional films have performed well without Hindi distribution.

"The box-office performance of recent regional films has shown that Hindi distribution is an opportunity for expansion and not a prerequisite for success," said Suniel Wadhwa, cofounder and director at film production and distribution company Karmic Films.

Recently, Telugu film Irumudi, made with a budget range of ₹35-40 crore and was also released in Tamil, generated more than 95% of its total collection of ₹188 crore from Telugu markets alone.

In the past five years, streaming platforms solved the distribution problem for regional films. Faithful dubbing and subtitling have created a base of incremental audiences who are aware of regional films and their artists.

"I think this entire decade will be of regional cinema. Streamers have expanded regional cinema's audiences outside home territories. Today, a Malayalam film, Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, has six shows in theatres in Gujarat and Kolkata," said film producer Naveen Chandra.

Audiences have been rewarding culturally rooted stories across languages more often today than ever, producers said.

"Today, audiences only want rooted stories. No star power or add-ons will excite them. This is reflected in the underwhelming performance of the recent Kannada film Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups," said producer Rajesh R Nair.

This increasing focus of makers of regional films on home territory first and then organically expanding to other markets through subtitling is a reaction to the correction in digital rights valuation, said distributors.

"There is uncertainty over recovery in investments due to correction in digital rights valuation. This has limited the scale of films in regional cinema," said Shaaminder Malik, a distributor and film business expert.