Malayalam actor Mohan Lal-starrer Janata Garage hit over 250 screens in Kerala. This is not news going by the stardom of the actor. The news is, it is a Telugu film, starring Jr NTR, but released in Kerala as a straight film. This signals a new trend where film-makers of one language industry make a serious effort to tap into other markets.

As budgets shoot up beyond ₹40 crore, the film makers in the South are looking at other geographies to get additional revenues. They are hiring actors from those markets and taking precautions to make the films appealing to the audience in other languages.

Mahesh Babu’s Telugu blockbuster movie Sreemanthudu was released in Tamil with much fanfare and Pawan Kalyan’s Sardar Gabbar Singh (SGS) was released in Hindi too. Stupendous success of Rajamouli’s Baahubali in multiple languages was an eye opener. On his Hindi debut through his home production SGS, Pawan Kalyan had said that it was important for film-makers to expand their reach.

D Suresh Babu, Managing Director of Suresh Productions, said the film-makers had begun to make conscious efforts, particularly in case of lavishly made films, to tap the neighbouring markets. “Though dubbing of movies continues to happen, some films with stars who have much wider appeal are being released straight in the local languages,” he pointed out.

Social media push

“It has become much easier for film makers to publicise their movies thanks to social media. This is helping them in targeting newer markets and newer audience,” he said.

Tamil actors have systematically cultivated the Telugu market over a period of time. Apart from Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan, actors like Suriya, Karthi and Vikram command a good market in Telugu.

It was Allu Arjun, who belongs to the newer generation of Telugu actors, tried to test the other language markets first and succeeded. His movies, dubbed in Malayalam, fare well in Kerala. Other actors have begun to emulate him.

Tamil actors Satyaraj and Prabhu, Kannada actor Upender and Telugu actors Suman and Jagapatibabu, heroines such as Nayanatara, Tamanna, Shruti Haasan, Hansika and Trisha are in great demand as the trend picks up momentum.

Though dubbing of movies has been a decade’s old practice, the film-makers are factoring in the nuances of nativities to attract the audience in the neighbouring languages.

Film analyst Mahesh Kathi sees this as a positive development. “Releasing films directly in Tamil Nadu and Malayalam markets get you about ₹2-3 crore each. This is actually not big when you compare with huge budgets. But this is a good beginning,” he says.

Compulsion

The realisation, however, is a result of the steep increase in the budgets that moved upwards of ₹40 crore for big films.

“Unlike Hindi and Tamil film industries, the Telugu industry has never taken the market outside of Telugu States very seriously. The Hindi and Tamil industries not only tapped the Diaspora markets, but also tailored the themes and star-cast to make the films attractive to audience in other languages,” a distributor said.

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