New mantra for pan-India stories

To woo audiences across the country and bring a global appeal, filmmakers are going with all guns blazing

Hyderabad: Telugu cinema is growing abound as a new ecosystem of story-tellers are generating a wide variety of content while surpassing regional and language boundaries. Any storyline that seems remotely universal — is being rehashed, pounded flat, and repacked to bring out a new flavour.

Actors don’t seem to mind if the project has stars from various film industries. Naturally, then, the market strategies in the film industry have been changing with time. Take the case of the upcoming epic drama ‘RRR’, directed by SS Rajamouli. Besides Ram Charan and Jr NTR, the movie has has Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn to woo Hindi audiences. Shriya Saran and Samuthirakani from Tamil industry are also playing the key roles. And Hollywood actors like Olivia Morris, Ray Stevenson and Allison Doody have been added to the list. It is learnt that the movie ‘RRR’ is releasing in as many as 12 languages across the globe.

---

The ace director’s earlier magnum opus ‘Baahubali’ had changed the dynamics of Telugu cinema and how pan-India films can be viewed from a marketing perspective. Post the success of the movie, fans across the world have been waiting with bated breath for another masterpiece from Rajamouli.

There’s no doubt that Prabhas’s career graph took a meteoric rise post ‘Baahubali’. His fan base rose to a considerably massive figure across India. And all his upcoming movies have been shaping into pan-India stories. His next movie ‘Adipurush’ has a stellar cast of Saif Ali Khan, Kriti Sanon, and Sunny Singh. His other movie ‘Radhe Shyam’ has actors Kunal Roy Kapoor and Bhagyashree playing pivotal roles. And according to the reports, another project of his, ‘Salaar’, would have a space for Kannada stars. Yet another untitled upcoming movie of Prabhas, to be made by Nag Ashwin, features actors Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone. The trend of having a wide range of regional actors in pan-India projects has already witnessed good results.

Pawan Kalyan’s upcoming period action-adventure film ‘Hari Hara Veera Mallu’ will have Arjun Rampal and Jacqueline Fernandez in vital roles. Allu Arjun’s ‘Pushpa’, which is releasing in all South Indian languages, has Malayalam actor Fahadh Faasil. It is also learnt that Samantha Akkineni’s next, ‘Shakuntalam’, will also have stars from various film industries.

Not just the Telugu film industry, Hindi filmmakers, too are embracing the new trend by roping in Telugu stars for their film projects. Hindi movie ‘Brahmāstra’ has Nagarjuna Akkineni in a pivotal role. Naga Chaitanya has a key role in ‘Lal Singh Chadda’, which is a remake of Hollywood flick ‘Forrest Gump’.

Let’s wait to see if this trend breaks box office records, sets the cash registers ringing and fetches the returns the filmmakers are aiming at.

---

Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today on Telegram everyday. Click the link to subscribe.

Click to follow Telangana Today Facebook page and Twitter .