South Indian remakes ruling Bollywood with around 18 hits in last 10 years including Kabir Singh
Rights for a south Indian hit ranging from ₹1.5-3 crore have given the opportunity for the dubbed versions to infiltrate the TV channels. Since, last decade, there have been almost 18 Bollywood films that have marked success in the industry. Baaghi 2 and Simmba have been the most successful remakes of south films, earning ₹101 cr and ₹100 cr, respectively
The most recent in the league is the Telugu director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s first Hindi film Kabir Singh, releasing today.
Kabir Singh is a remake of his own cult Telugu blockbuster Arjun Reddy which is subjected as the latest remake of South India blockbusters in the long list, Bollywood has either been inspired by or plagiarized.
Known for their entertaining and emotional storylines, South Indian movies from Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada have offered enough spice for the Hindi film narratives. In fact, during the last 10 years, as per the data from film trade websites, it has been known that Bollywood has remade 38 south Indian films, 18 out of which have been hits.
Tiger Shroff-starrer Baaghi 2 (a remake of Telugu movie Kshanam), Ranveer Singh’s action comedy Simmba (Telugu film Temper) and Salman Khan’s action romantic comedy Bodyguard (Malayalam film of the same name) have rank highest on the list, with profits of ₹101 crore, ₹100 crore and ₹74 crore, respectively.
While a few that stand out are, Ajay Devgn (Singham, Son Of Sardaar, Himmatwala, Action Jackson, Singham Returns, Drishyam) and Akshay Kumar (Gabbar Is Back, Holiday, Boss, Rowdy Rathore, Khatta Meetha, De Dana Dan).
Sreedhar Pillai, an independent trade analyst talking in this account said, “Films have to be commercially viable and it always makes sense to remake a film that is a proven hit. Plus, all the movies that have been remade have had universal content and emotions that could work on a pan-India scale.”
As per the film experts, south Indian cinema has perfected the art of making commercially viable mainstream entertainerment films with drama and emotions.
As reportedly, Kabir Singh is set in the city of Delhi while Arjun Reddy was based primarily in Mangaluru. Industry experts say the modern-day Devdas plot line is all about a self-destructive alcoholic surgeon that had owed a lot of success to lead actor Vijay Deverakonda and same is expected to replicate for Said Kapoor. Further, Laxmmi Bomb is the upcoming Hindi remake of Tamil horror comedy Muni 2: Kanchana starring Akshay Kumar.
