In just about seven months, director SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Beginning will turn 10. This also means that it’s been nearly a decade since the rise of the term “pan-Indian films” and the growing trend of producing big-budget movies designed to appeal to audiences across the country. While these films often incorporate a degree of regional identity to appear rooted, they tend to follow formulaic patterns and to broaden their reach, filmmakers often cast actors from various languages and release these movies worldwide, while also dubbing them into major Indian languages as well.
The rise of “pan-Indian” films has been both a boon and a bane for Indian cinema. On the positive side, these movies have generated massive revenues, expanded the boundaries of the box office and attracted more investors to cinema. They have also fostered collaborations across industries, bringing lesser-known regional film industries into the limelight. However, this trend has also fuelled toxic practices such as evaluating a film’s quality solely based on its budget and box office collections and diluting regional ethos and nuances to cater to a wider audience. As a result, movies have started appearing generic and lacking distinctiveness.
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While this strategy was highly successful until a few years ago, its appeal has been steadily declining. Despite makers pouring hundreds of crores into these massive “pan-Indian” productions with the hope of multiplying their returns, many of these films are now failing to live up to expectations. Regardless of star power or marketing hype, audiences are increasingly unwilling to accept movies that fall short of quality.
As 2024 draws to a close, it’s safe to say that this year has been a wake-up call for superstars and makers as audiences have reaffirmed their role as the ultimate judges of a film’s success. This year saw them mercilessly rejecting subpar movies, regardless of the budgets involved, instead valuing their own time, money and tastes; rewarding films that respected these investments. They were also not swayed by the “pan-Indian” tag, star power or lavish visuals and gave movies only what they deserved.
Notably, 2024 saw numerous films failing despite being marketed as “pan-Indian” spectacles or headlined by major stars, particularly since many of these movies offered little beyond their hefty budgets and visual grandeur, leading audiences to dismiss them outright. This year, viewers took a firm stand against poorly made “pan-Indian” films, causing several of these projects to flop, scrape by as average grossers or become troll materials after their OTT releases. It’s a clear indication that the era of prioritising spectacle over substance is losing its grip.
The first major film to encounter such a fate was the highly anticipated Malaikottai Vaaliban, directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery and starring Malayalam superstar Mohanlal. Touted as the movie that would end Mohanlal’s streak of underwhelming performances, it generated immense hype, including fan shows across Kerala. However, its tone and content deviated from the usual superstar-driven formula and the missteps in marketing and the promotional language, used without taking the former point into consideration, resulted in the movie facing a setback. Despite the narrative not necessitating it, the makers attempted to sell it as a “pan-Indian” film, a decision that backfired and ultimately contributed to its poor box office performance.
Bollywood, too, saw a string of big-budget flops. Films like Ali Abbas Zafar’s Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, starring Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff and Prithviraj Sukumaran, Ajay Devgn’s Maidaan, Vasan Bala’s Alia Bhatt-starrer Jigra, Sagar Ambre and Pushkar Ojha’s Yodha led by Siddharth Malhotra and Aditya Datt’s Crakk starring Vidyut Jammwal, all failed to deliver on their hype. However, given that a significant portion of Bollywood’s output in 2024 suffered a similar fate, the industry faces deeper systemic challenges beyond the fallout of the “pan-Indian” trend. And indeed, 2024 might go down as one of the worst years in Bollywood’s history.
In South India, particularly in Tamil and Telugu cinema, the scenario was worse, with most major stars facing underwhelming box office returns. The biggest disappointment was undoubtedly director S Shankar’s Indian 2, which saw Kamal Haasan reprise his iconic role as Senapathy from the 1996 classic Indian. While the original had earned Kamal a National Film Award for Best Actor, the sequel tarnished the legacy of both the film and its protagonist. Worse still, a third instalment was announced even before Indian 2 was released, with Shankar revealing that Indian 2 had been split into two due to its length. This overconfidence in brands — Kamal’s, Shankar’s and the franchise’s — which prompts makers to announce sequels beforehand is emblematic of the counterproductive tendencies ushered in by the “pan-Indian” trend.
Several other films suffered similar fates. From Malaikottai Vaaliban and director Koratala Siva’s Devara: Part 1 — starring Jr NTR, Saif Ali Khan and Janhvi Kapoor — to Sukumar’s Pushpa 2: The Rule — featuring Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna and Fahadh Faasil — Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD — headlined by Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Deepika Padukone – Siva’s Suriya-starrer Kanguva, many mammoth films ended on cliffhangers designed to set up sequels, without even stopping to think for a second that people may end up not liking these movies, thus rendering the announcement of a sequel at the end of the movies a very poor decision.
Among the “pan-Indian” films that failed to meet expectations were Venkat Prabhu’s The Greatest of All Time (GOAT), starring “Thalapathy” Vijay; Rohit Shetty’s star-packed Singham Again (featuring Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff, Arjun Kapoor and a cameo by Salman Khan); and TJ Gnanavel’s Vettaiyan, starring Rajinikanth, Amitabh Bachchan, Fahadh Faasil, Rana Daggubati and Manju Warrier.
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Although these movies earned considerable revenue, none — apart from Pushpa 2 — achieved the level of success they anticipated prior to their respective releases. However, reports indicate that the makers of Pushpa 2 brought multiplexes under contracts that required them to screen no other films for the first 10 days of its release. This raises the question of whether the film’s success would have been as remarkable without such strategies.
Hence, the lacklustre performance of other movies should prompt makers to rethink their approach — moving beyond the “pan-Indian” trend and investing wisely in projects only when necessary. It’s unrealistic to expect audiences to turn a profit from a film solely because of its inflated budget, especially when the spending is done with the assumption of guaranteed multifold returns.
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