Cover story The Sun rises in the SOUTH

Continude from Page 35

“Dulquer is now popular in the North, but when I spoke with him, he said he was not moving bag and baggage there. As for Prabhas, who’s now doing Saaho in Hindi, let’s see if people remember him from Baahubali. These are all attempts to push the boundaries of a particular star or industry,” states Rangan.

SPICE GIRLS

Telugu actresses and those who started off with Tollywood have always appealed to Bollywood filmmakers — from the late Sridevi, who’s Telugu cinema’s biggest success story in B-town, to Rekha, Hema Malini and Jaya Prada, the female leads were always sought after. The trend seems to be continuing with top Telugu actresses doing big films in Hindi — Taapsee is now a name to reckon with in Bollywood, Tamanaah will be doing the Jigarthanda remake, Rakul Preet, who found popularity in T-town is also finding her foothold in Bollywood. South films being adapted or remade in Hindi isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been happening for many years, but it’s only now that apart from stars like Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, many of them are high on the popularity quotient online and otherwise. Older films like Maro Charitra (Telugu version of Ek Duje Ke Liye) and over the last decade, Vikramarkudu, Athadu, Pokiri, Kandireega, Ready, Maryada Ramanna etc have been remade with big Hindi stars like Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar starring in some of them. National-award winning actress and filmmaker Revathi says, “There’s always been exchange of ideas from previous generations. Eminent Tamil producers and filmmakers like Chinnappa Devar (Haathi Mere Saathi, Gaai Aur Gauri, Shubh Din), K Balachander (Oonche Log, Aaina, Ek Duje Ke liye) were remaking their Tamil films into Hindi.

We are only listening to two per cent of the films that are being made. Some of the scripts made in the South are so brilliant that they cannot be ignored. Tamil and Malayalam filmmakers are coming out with quirky scripts and they have worked out well in other languages. Some of the films produced in Tamil and Telugu do have a commercial base and there’s also a story, which gets noticed in Bollywood. The Hindi film industry has parallel cinema where there are bunch of filmmakers and actors who always do excellent work. Of course, they have merged into mainstream cinema now. So, there’s no dearth of scripts in B-town. In the recent past, Prabhu Deva and Raghava Lawrence have made inroads into Bollywood with direction. Hindi films have had huge number of cinematographers from south — from Guru Dutt days when Murthy sir who used to work in his flicks. Directors are different. You need to know the language, culture etc. When you have a theme set in a rural village in North India, it is difficult. But Prabhu or Lawrence films are different — their stories are not based in specific rural parts.”

OTT OPTIONS

Of course, with Netflix, Amazon Prime and other platforms streaming south films, they’ve found aficionados in the North who can now swoon over south stars. Hemanth adds, “With over-the-top (OTT) media platforms coming in, a lot of migration is happening behind the screens. People from Tamil and Telugu are directing in Hindi etc. Regional stars also have a strong national presence and there’s a cross-pollination of big stars. You have somebody like Amitabh Bachchan acting in Chiranjeevi’s film. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes the norm. Also, the fact that stars like Sudeep are now starring in Bollywood speaks volumes of the kind of presence he has across markets.”

TOLLYWOOD HOTSPOT

Both script-oriented and masala commercial South Indian flicks are being lapped up by Hindi filmmakers. The Telugu film Prasantham is being remade in Hindi with Sanjay Dutt in the lead and Ajith’s Veeram is being remade as Bachchan Pandey starring remake king Akshay Kumar. Other re-creations include Laxxmi Bomb, a remake of Kanchana 2 and the remake of the Telugu film RX 100 which will star Ahan Shetty (Suneil Shetty’s son). There are also talks that Kannada superhit Kirik Party and Tamil blockbuster Vikram Vedha will have Hindi remakes too. If all goes well, Neeraj Pandey may pull off a great casting coup by bringing Aamir Khan and Saif Ali Khan in the VV remake.

Amongst the new Tollywood films that are being reconstructed in Hindi is Jersey, which starred Nani and Shraddha Srinath. Directed by Gowtam Tinnanuri, Jersey went on to become a superhit and the rights of the film have been bought over by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. “I don’t see it as something that’s a bigger leap because it’s being remade in Hindi. I just feel like my story is being shown in another medium and language, reaching a larger audience. When we started Jersey, we never imagined that it would or should be remade in other languages. We concentrated on the South market. Bollywood sure does make great films, but creatively and technically, we’re as strong as the Hindi film industry,” asserts Gowtam, who has had two initial meetings with the Hindi film makers to see if he can direct their version of Jersey as well.

While the North-South blend is more visible now, director Sandeep Reddy Vanga adds that Southern stars have been considered at par with Bollywood actors for a long time. The director of Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh ruminates on why the spotlight has turned more intensely on the South recently, “With the advent of technology and social media, raw and innovative content is encouraging filmmakers to come up with scripts that have universal plotlines whilst pushing cinema beyond regions. So, this aspect will encourage filmmakers to make films in multiple languages. It also opens up business for cinema too. Filmmakers want to narrate an intriguing story, and for that, they need to feel the emotion of the story. Any filmmaker will only look into the genuineness and connectivity of the story line and how convincing the characters are in the film. If he can strike a fine balance (customising to the nativity of the audience), then he has a winner at the box office. Shahid and I only believed in the emotion of the character, he went on to live the character. So, the challenge in a remake is to relive and recreate the emotion, which I could do successfully because Shahid believed in my writing ability and directorial skills.”

Another Tollywood film that’s being considered to be remade is Puri Jagannadh’s recently-released Ismart Shankar starring Ram Pothineni and Nidhi which crossed `75 crore recently. The film’s coproducer, actress Charmme Kaur reveals, “Ismart Shankar has reap ed in new records for us. This is a trend which started way back, and we’ve seen this obsession getting bigger over the years. Good content is always accepted across India. With more films being made, newer concepts being attempted by Telugu cinema and with the rise in the success rate, Tollywood is now a hotspot for Bollywood.”

When we started we never imagined that it would be remade in other languages. We concentrated on the South market. Bollywood makes great films but creatively and technically, we are as strong as the Hindi film industry. director

A still from

Kabir Singh