For a long time, Indian film industry was divided into Hindi and regional cinema. But as regional filmmakers begin to make their films to suit a more national audience with better production values, neat subtitling and dubbed versions and, in a small but growing number of cases, multilingual productions, geographical barriers are fast coming down.
The growing national appeal of regional films is having a ripple effect. For example, Baahubali: The Conclusion clocked around Rs 1,500 crore worldwide and earned around Rs 1,000 crore from non-Telugu languages, both Indian and foreign. The SS Rajamouli directed film broke all previous records to become an industry hit in Hindi as well.
Now, all eyes are on Prabhas’s next outing Saaho which is slated for relase on August 15th. The film’s Hindi rights were sold long ago for staggering price and even Bollywood spectators are waiting eagerly for the release of Saaho directed by Sujeeth.
Not just Prabhas or his makers or his fans, Ram Charan too is praying for the victory of Saaho at box office, especially in North. If Saaho makes good business in Hindi, it will definitely have positive effect on next releases from regional languages. And the next big release from south is Mega Star Chiranjeevi’s Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy which will also be released in Hindi.
Ram Charan produced Sye Raa on massive budget to realize his dad Chiranjeevi’s dream of playing a freedom fighter on screen. He roped in popular actors from various languages to give it a universal appeal.
Bollywood mega star Amitabh Bachchan played a brief role and his presence will surely help the film to generate good buzz in Hindi. But, more than anything else, Saaho result will have great impact on Sye Raa’s prospects in North.
Directed by Surender Reddy, Sye Raa will hit the screens in all south languages and Hindi on October 2nd.