The Indian cinemascape has been going through a major change in the last few years. The age-old dominance of Hindi-language cinema, commonly dubbed Bollywood cinema, has seen a drastic fall especially in the post-COVID scenario. The past two years have seen this trend settle in quite definitively. The facts are apparent no matter which way you cut it. Numerous industry statistics, as per Forbes India, show that South India is the new king of Indian cinema, with 62% of the total box office collections in 2021 coming from South Indian films. Meanwhile, in 2022, not a single Hindi-language film appeared in the top five domestic highest-grossers.
Bollywood stakeholders haven’t shied away from dubbing the issue a crisis, as the biggest stars of the industry have failed to guarantee profits over the past year. Laal Singh Chaddha, Amir Khan’s remake of Forrest Gump, failed to recoup its budget, while Akshay Kumar delivered three back-to-back flops in 2022. The common consensus seems to be that Bollywood filmmakers have lost touch with its audience. As streaming services became popular in the country, Hindi-language audiences found a greater sense of relatability with South Indian content, discovering that South Indian filmmakers offered the same sense of larger-than-life spectacle they craved and delivered it at a greater pitch.
Filmmakers and actors from Bollywood have been advocating for some much-needed introspection to rediscover the industry’s connection with its audience. The phrase “content is king” is repeatedly bandied about in discussions, appearing as a new buzzword for Bollywood stakeholders. However, no definitive film has yet appeared as a direct result of this discourse.
In its place, 2023 teases the birth of a new strategy for Bollywood to maintain its relevance. A few movies, to be released later this year, are being marketed as a deeply involved collaboration between Bollywood and South Indian filmmakers. The idea, it seems, is to reverse-engineer the deeply rooted filmmaking signatures of South Indian cinema, which has allowed it to gain dominance over Bollywood within a short span of time. How the newly-discerning film audience of India responds to these collaborations will be a treat to witness. Whichever way the responses go, these experiments are bound to have an indelible impact on the Indian cinematic style as a whole.
Animal
Scheduled for an August 11 release date, Animal is an ambitious attempt at bringing Bollywood and the Telugu-language film industry together. It boasts an unusual ensemble cast that includes the best talents from Bollywood and Telugu cinemas, actors who would never come together under ordinary circumstances. Among the confirmed cast members include Telugu actress Rashmika Mandanna of Pushpa: The Rise, up-and-coming talent Tripti Dimri of Qala and Bulbbul, as well as Bollywood veterans like Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol. But the most significant names associated with the project are its writer-director Sandeep Reddy Vanga, and leading star Ranbir Kapoor.
Having worked as an associate director for many years, he has full directorial credits for only two movies, which he also wrote: the 2017 Telugu movie Arjun Reddy, and its 2019 Hindi-language remake, Kabir Singh. A maniacal love story led by a high-functioning alcoholic with anger issues, the movies courted criticism for their misogynistic tones. However, his stylistic irreverence connected strongly with the audience, delivering cult success for Kabir Singh and earning him nationwide fans.
Meanwhile, Ranbir Kapoor’s casting in Animal comes amidst some high-profile experimentations by the actor. The current face of the Kapoor film family, Ranbir had garnered his reputation by playing everyman characters, delivering a number of performances within this bracket that quickly became classics — Barfi!, Rockstar, and Wake Up Sid being some of them. In 2022, he emerged after a hiatus of four years in roles that suddenly disconnected from this brand. Shamshera was a blatant attempt at recreating the pan-Indian blockbuster epics produced by South Indian cinema, such as RRR or KGF. The project was a massive box office bomb. He then produced and starred in Brahmāstra, which sought to create a superhero universe akin to the MCU based on ideas and characters from Hindu mythology. As it was created on an overinflated budget, the movie just barely turned over a profit. It still managed to become the subject of many internet jokes due to its half-baked dialogues.
Animal is going to be his third major venture into the kind of epic storytelling for which South Indian cinema is known. By the looks of things, this project will be a laudable one. While details are being kept under wraps, with the sole teaser revealing precious little, the movie is believed to revolve around father-son relationships, and explore man’s violent, animalistic instincts. It’s the kind of shocking subject matter to which Vanga’s irreverent directorial style might be particularly suited. And since he is the one who ideated this story and wrote the script, the movie is more than likely to hit the mark.
Jawan
Jawan, meanwhile, figures prominently in a year of apparent reinvention for the Bollywood superstar, Shah Rukh Khan. This year marks the return of Bollywood’s last superstar after a hiatus of three years, and he has announced his return in a big way — with three titles releasing within one year, which is a big number for an actor of his stature. Interestingly, each of these three movies specifically connect him to a different lore or ongoing phenomenon within Bollywood.
Pathaan, which released in January, established Khan as a leading character in a major ongoing Bollywood project, the Yash Raj Films Spy Universe. Among many other similar cinematic universe projects going on within Bollywood, the YRF Spyverse is by far the most profitable one. Pathaan, in a way, ensures Khan’s continued relevance for some years and allows him to deftly avoid the box office bombs faced by other big-name Bollywood stars like Akshay Kumar. His other 2023 film, Dunki gives him the chance to create a possibly classic Bollywood title through a collaboration with Raj Kumar Hirani, a legendary filmmaker renowned for his unfailing ability to create classics in the social drama genre with hits like Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and 3 Idiots under his belt.
Finally, Jawan places him as a centerpiece in Bollywood’s attempt to recover its failing relevance, by making him the star of a major cross-industry collaborative film. Produced by Gauri Khan, a well-known Bollywood producer (and also Khan’s wife), Jawan is essentially a Tamil film produced by a Bollywood studio, starring a Bollywood star. The action thriller movie is being directed by Tamil film director Atlee, and features a veritable mix of North and South Indian actors as cast members, with renowned Tamil actor Vijay Sethupathi as the lead antagonist.
Having originally found his stardom playing the romantic hero in iconic films, Khan’s original charm appears to have lost its place in time. Bollywood has long moved beyond such films, and attempts at recreating the nostalgia often rings hollow for want of substance. With movies like Pathaan and Jawan, he seems to be leaning more into the action star persona, something he’s quite comfortable with as seen in films like Don 2 and Raees. At the same time, Jawan places him among the forefront of Bollywood’s attempt to reinvent itself by borrowing influence from its regional South Indian counterparts.
The Rise of the Indian Star
While Animal and Jawan appear as the forerunners in this new trend of North-South collaborations within Indian cinema, the Indian film industry in general has caught onto the idea of appealing to a broader, pan-Indian audience by "borrowing" actors from other cinema industries within the country. To be fair, this is nothing new, as films in the past have done this every so often. Hindi-speaking audiences in the past would also anticipate the Bollywood debuts of beloved South Indian stars, which were greatly celebrated when they finally happened.
However, this trend of borrowing actors has taken a new pitch as of late. The Bollywood megastar Salman Khan, who never appears in anything but leading roles, agreed to feature as a supporting character in the 2022 Telugu film GodFather. The political action thriller starred the Telugu icon Chiranjeevi in the leading role, and Khan appeared during the second half in an action role that suited his regular film persona. Although the movie didn’t perform too well at the box office, the collaboration between two megastars of equal stature from two different parts of India was a rare and unusual sight.
Meanwhile, some actors are quickly becoming favored as the first-to-call for these cross-industry roles. The most obvious name in this new category of Indian actors is the Tamil actor Vijay Sethupathi. Having wowed the audience with his ability to craft imaginative and entertaining characterizations in movies like Super Deluxe and Vikram, he has always been a prolific performer. As of late, he has found a demand in Hindi-language productions as well, appearing in a significant role in the recently released Prime Video series, Farzi. He is also slated to appear in the Bollywood action thriller, Mumbaikar.
Whether or not these collaborations end up making an impact on the declining state of Bollywood cinema is yet to be seen. But the strategy has already made a difference in the brands of certain Indian actors such as Sethupathi himself. While collaborations between the different Indian film industries are nothing new, they seem to be imbued with a new energy; the strict boundaries and imaginative hierarchies appear to be dissolving under the piercing glance of a more discerning audience. One wonders if, in the aftermath of these interactions, an actor such as Vijay Sethupathi can attain the rare stature of a true Indian star — one whose legend and reputation doesn’t differ in the slightest across the entirety of India.