Hindi belt triumphs as southern films struggle in home states
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. With over 60% of the box office collections of Allu Arjun’s Pushpa 2: The Rule coming from the dubbed Hindi version, trade experts say the north Indian market has trumped the home state for several big-ticket southern films.
While price increases are more easily implemented in Hindi states, where it is common for multiplexes to charge upwards of ₹400 for high-performing titles, the southern market is also facing an overdose of action films that native audiences have seen too many of. The Hindi belt, on the other hand, is hungry for these mass-market commercial entertainers.
Out of the total ₹1,255.76 crore made by Pushpa 2 within India, the dubbed Hindi version has brought in around ₹829 crore, followed by the original Telugu version with ₹339.20 crore, the Tamil version with ₹61.76 crore, the Malayalam version with ₹17 crore and the Kannada version with ₹8.80 crore, according to trade experts. Also read: Screen Wars: India's multiplexes go slow on expansion amid box office woes Earlier, in the case of Kannada action drama KGF: Chapter 2, Hindi-speaking markets such as Mumbai and Delhi-Uttar Pradesh had clocked in ₹134.61 crore and ₹91.68 crore, respectively, in comparison to home markets such as Nizam-Andhra Pradesh and Mysuru with ₹16.01 crore and ₹13.99 crore.
The film, when released in 2022, had emerged as the highest-grosser in the Hindi language until then, with box office collections of ₹434.7 crore from the dubbed Hindi version. “The film has definitely done better in Hindi.
There was pushback in the Telugu-speaking states given that the distributors did not allow for price drops, pricing out a significant portion of the audience. That said, its performance in the Hindi space
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