The 1000-crore club: ‘Baahubali’ to ‘Pushpa’, Telugu cinema’s box office juggernaut

The watershed moment for Telugu cinema began with SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali films. With that, the term ‘pan India cinema’ came into vogue, and a handful of Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam movies eyed similar box office receptions. 

Back in time

Movies from the southern states have travelled far and wide even earlier, through dubbed versions and remakes. Sureshbabu Daggubati, one of Telugu cinema’s veteran producers, recalls an early example — Chandralekha (1948): “The Tamil film (directed by S S Vasan) was considered to be an average grosser but the Hindi version (for which some scenes were reshot, with a few changes in the cast) was a big hit. Over the decades, several Telugu films such as Ramudu Bheemudu and Chanti were remade in other languages. Today, Telugu films dubbed in other languages are widely accepted. I spotted a social media post stating that this year’s biggest hit — Pushpa 2 — is led by a Telugu actor (Allu Arjun) who does not speak Hindi. It is not an exaggeration.”

Anushka Shetty and Prabhas in ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’
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Special Arrangement

Sureshbabu attributes the success of the two Baahubali and Pushpa films, RRR and Kalki, to their ability to appeal to people at the grassroots levels. “There was a period when Hindi cinema did not consider ‘mass’ cinema as fashionable; some of their narratives catered to the NRI viewers. They considered these mass masala narratives tacky, but it has witnessed a resurgence. Our films have been more emotionally rooted; we have a better understanding of the traditional Indian ‘mass’ audience as well as the tastes of our Telugu software engineers living overseas. Our marketing has also become stronger.”

The marketing of Pushpa-The Rise began days before its release in December 2021, when director Rajamouli, sensing the film’s potential, urged its director Sukumar and producers Mythri Movie Makers to dub the film in Hindi. 

Smart marketing

Allu Arjun in ‘Pushpa: The Rise’
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Special Arrangement

Anurag Reddy, co-founder of marketing agency First Show, observed how Allu Arjun’s character, Pushparaj, resonated with the audiences in the Hindi-speaking heartland. “The working class felt represented when Pushpa sat cross-legged after toiling to earn his wages, unmindful of his employer’s presence.” The ‘thaggede le’ (‘jhukega nahi’ in Hindi) catchphrase caught on like wildfire. In Pushpa 2: The Rule, Pushparaj states that his name is not only synonymous with fire, but wildfire!

Anurag says the team’s strategy for the sequel aligned with the film’s content. Remember the short video ‘Where is Pushpa?’ released around a year ago? Though scenes from that teaser did not appear in the movie, the video sparked curiosity. “The first poster and teaser featured Allu Arjun dressed as a woman (during the Gangamma jatara celebrated in the Chittoor region). It became a talking point as people began to look for cultural references. Every subsequent poster and promotional video was carefully planned. Since the actual footage of ‘Sooseki’ song could be a spoiler, a lyrical video featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Allu Arjun and Rashmika rehearsing was planned.”

Posters of Pushpa 2 were put up at all single screens and multiplexes across the country, 45 to 50 days before the film’s release. Anurag says that planning the trailer launch event in Patna was challenging. “The producers were willing to go that extra mile. The police and IAS officers in Bihar were also cooperative. We were overwhelmed when more than two lakh people attended the event.”

Return of the angry young man

Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’
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Special Arrangement

A few months ago when director Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898AD was released, riding on the popularity of Prabhas in the post-Baahubali era, the surprise package was Amitabh Bachchan as the immortal Ashwatthama. Channeling Bachchan’s iconic ‘angry young man’ image from the 1970s and 80s, Nag Ashwin’s Mahabahrata-meets-science fiction narrative presented him as an ‘angry old man’ (as Prabhas quips in the film), with action sequences to boot. This, coupled with the film’s futuristic spin-off of stories from the epics, and a line-up of prominent actors including Kamal Haasan and Deepika Padukone, worked in Kalki’s favour. 

Swapna Dutt, one of Kalki’s producers, says, “We (she and her sister Priyanka Dutt) knew that this would be a big-budget film involving stars and visual effects. We were confident that the strong core of the film — the story of the birth of Kalki — would connect with all Indian audiences. The complex worlds that Nagi (director Nag Ashwin) created gave a new visual experience to the younger audiences who enjoy Avengers films. Nagi had this idea for long and thanks to the possibilities to scale up post-Baahubali, he approached Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan.”

Swapna explains that Prabhas being a larger-than-life star helped draw the audiences into the theatres. “Once in, there were more surprises. Everyone was delighted to watch Bachchan saab in an action mode and Kamal Haasan as an antagonist.”

NTR and Ram Charan in ‘RRR’

In the case of RRR, a well-planned promotional strategy by Hyderabad-based marketing group Walls and Trends leveraged Rajamouli’s popularity post-Baahubali, and the familiarity with NTR and Ram Charan, thanks to the telecast of the dubbed versions of their Telugu hits in Hindi over the years. The ‘Naatu Naatu’ (‘Naacho Naacho’) hookstep was an added advantage. Since the early 2010s, Hindi versions of Telugu films, on Sony and Star television networks have made stars such as Allu Arjun and Mahesh Babu popular among the Hindi-speaking audiences.

The Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Animal is another massive blockbuster (earning more than ₹800 crore worldwide) directed by Hyderabad-based filmmaker Sandeep Reddy Vanga, who had earlier remade his Telugu film Arjun Reddy as Kabir Singh in Hindi, both of which were box office hits. Other films dubbed from Telugu that attracted attention include Karthikeya 2, Salaar, Hanu-Man and Devara: Part 1. Salaar benefitted from the popularity of Prabhas and KGF-fame director Prashant Neel.

Meanwhile, Hanu-Man sprang a surprise. Made with a modest budget (reportedly around ₹40 crore), director Prashant Varma’s film showed that good quality visual effects are possible within a moderate budget and can complement an entertaining narrative of an underdog hero who gets superpowers from lord Hanuman. Director Koratala Siva’s Devara: Part 1, headlined by Jr. NTR, leveraged the actor’s post-RRR popularity across the nation. However, a major chunk of its reported box office collections came from the Telugu States. 

In the making

Part one of ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ ended by revealing Prabhas as Karna
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Special Arrangement

For every Baahubali, RRR and Pushpa that succeeds, several other big-budget Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films end up as cold turkeys.

A section of the audience rues the trend of larger-than-life action entertainers ending with a cliffhanger — leading to a sequel— to cash in on the possibility of a franchise.

However, that path may not end soon. In the pipeline are sequels such as Pushpa 3: The Rampage, Kalki 2, Salaar 2, and Devara 2. Also in the pipeline are Spirit (Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s film starring Prabhas) and Rajamouli’s film starring Mahesh Babu. As Pushpa declares that he is going international, some of these Telugu films too are in the process of making international collaborations to further widen the box office prospects.