Southern language box office in 2024 may rise 15%, lifted by Malayalam flicks
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Box-office collection for movies released across the four southern languages—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam—in 2024 is likely to be 10-15% higher than last year's ₹5,110 crore, trade experts said. With hits like Manjummel Boys, Aadujeevitham-The Goat Life, Premalu, Aavesham, Vashangalkku Shesham and Brahmyugam, Malayalam cinema witnessed an extraordinary year, with gross collections of ₹743 crore between January and June alone, higher than total collections for calendar years 2022 and 2023.
Tamil cinema notched up impressive numbers too, with titles like Amaran, Maharaja and Vettaiyan standing out. However, earnings for Telugu and Kannada cinema remained mostly subdued, even though the former has managed all-time hits with Pushpa 2: The Rule and Kalki 2898 AD, they said. “The only two industries that managed to see some kind of an upside in 2024 were Tamil and Malayalam that clearly overperformed as compared to last year.
Like Bollywood, the performance by Telugu movies, was mostly disastrous," said Amit Sharma, managing director of Miraj Entertainment, a company that operates multiplex theatres. Sharma said the strategy by both Tamil and Malayalam cinema was clear—a mix of high-budget star vehicles interspersed with smart, content-driven films releasing at regular intervals so as to keep the supply for theatres going. In contrast, Hindi movies remained absent for long periods of time and then arrived in a bunch, leading to several box-office clashes.
Telugu titles, on the other hand, with the exception of Pushpa 2, Kalki and Hanu-Man, barely brought any good news for exhibitors. “Southern cinema displayed varied performance in 2024. While Malayalam films had a breakthrough year,
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