Alia Bhatt to Deepika Padukone: Bollywood turns to South India for success

Bollywood’s romance with big commercial cinema in the various South India film industries continues with several top-billed actors signing on for tentpole productions. Over the next few months, Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn (pictured) will be seen ‘Baahubali’ maker SS Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ with Jr NTR and Ram Charan.

Sanjay Dutt and Raveena Tandon (pictured) join Yash in ‘KGF: Chapter 2’, Sonu Sood returns to the South in the Chiranjeevi-starrer ‘Acharya’, while Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone will co-star with Prabhas in an untitled upcoming film.

The new roster of stars follows in the footsteps of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (pictured) and Sonakshi Sinha among numerous others, who have worked in South Indian productions for a wider audience reach.

“Now production houses in the South — from Kannada, Telugu and Tamil film industries — are making big budget action films that have all-Indian sentiments roaring high. You throw in some Bollywood stars and you get mass circuits locked.. Also, the dubbing value becomes higher and satellite prices soar. Earlier, only Salman Khan (pictured) used to make such massy films,” says Chennai-based trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai.

Pillai believes it is a win-win for Bollywood actors, too, such as Akshay Kumar (pictured) in ‘2.0’ who featured with Rajinikanth. “The reach for them is also bigger, which was not there earlier. Solo hero Hindi films didn’t get a great response in the South. Plus, the actors get good money and good banners, so it works for them,” he added.

RRR: The SS Rajamouli directorial has been creating buzz ever since it was announced. The film has Telugu superstars Ram Charan and Jr NTR, along with Devgn and Bhatt (pictured). Production started in 2019 while Bhatt joined the sets in December 2020. The unit recently finished shooting the film’s climax scene and it is expected to release in October this year. Unconfirmed rumours have stated the film rides a budget of over Rs4.5 billion.

KGF Chapter 2: The sequel to the 2018 blockbutser ‘KGF: Chapter 1’ brings back Kannada superstar Yash as Rocky the gangster. Added attraction in the sequel is the presence of Sanjay Dutt and Raveena Tandon in the cast. While Tandon plays Ramika Sen, described just as a powerful figure in the story as of now, Dutt (pictured) is cast as the antagonist Adheera. The film is set to release in July this year.

Untitled Prabhas film with Bachchan and Padukone: The yet-untitled film promises to be a big ticket film, uniting Telugu superstar Prabhas with Bollywood icon Bachchan (pictured) and Padukone. The film will be directed by Nag Ashwin and is slated to release in 2022.

Acharya: The much-awaited Chiranjeevi starrer has the Telugu superstar’s son Ram Charan as one producers. The film will have Bollywood actor Sood (pictured) play a pivotal role. Being shot in Hyderabad, the film is expected to release in May this year.