Heated competition: Hindi Film Industry vs South

Indian Film Industry

The post-pandemic era has been kicked off with a bang by South Indian films, particularly
the Telugu film industry, which has solidified its position at the national level. This is a really
encouraging trend, and more southern films will likely try to accomplish it in the future. The
trend was established by Bahubali, followed by Bahubhali 2, Saaho, Pushpa, and now RRR.

With KGF 1 and 2, the Karnataka film industry has also experienced some bloodshed. With
2.0, even the Tamil cinema industry attempted to make this change. This merely
demonstrates that in recent years, every actor, director, and production company from the
Deep South worth their salt has attempted to cross the Rubicon and connect with a bigger
home audience.

One thing is very evident from this: every regional film is aware that there is a Rs 1,000 crore
box office market up for grabs, and every film coming out of the southern stable wants to
capture this sum. There is no doubt that a significant portion of these films won't make that
shift, but most of them will make the effort because the cost-benefit analysis favors them
heavily. The expense of distribution and promotion is little in comparison to the benefits
they may derive from their film, which raises the demand for satellite and digital rights for
their productions.

The contrast between Hindi and regional films can be found here. Hindi films will need to
consider how to increase their market, particularly in south India, which has about half of
the country's exhibition screens. The reason is that even the biggest box office performance
for the Hindi film Dangal was underwhelming in any southern region at approximately Rs
375 crore. Hindi films will need to find ways to increase their box office receipts in southern
areas, since this is their Achilles' heel. Hindi films have not had a significant impact in the
south of India, but southern films have transitioned to the north of India without any major
issues.

Bollywood will need to take it up even if they are already doing so by collaborating with
regional directors and national actors. For their films to develop a devoted following, they
will need to do more than that. Remember that ancillary rights like satellite and digital have
an impact on box office receipts as well because these could suffer if the performance of the
Hindi box office begins to plateau.

All of this comes down to having a burning desire to succeed and managing risks in a way
that is financially compatible with rewards. The release window is likely to become even
more competitive, and south obviously has a very good lead to advance the Indian film
business. The Indian market has the highest number of films released and the lowest density
of screens per million population, so South has definitely understood this math well.