Mirroring The Industry: Is it the end of road to remake South Films dubbed in Hindi? MGG

The last year and a half have been an eye-opener for the Hindi Film Industry in many ways. While certain genre of films is now being made for OTT, the remake culture in the film industry too will undergo a change in the coming year. It started back in April 2022 with the Shahid Kapoor and Mrunal Thakur lead Jersey. The film was a remake of Nani’s sport-based love story of the same title and interestingly, it was dubbed in Hindi too with same title available for free on Television and YouTube.

No Interest in Repeat Telecast with Hindi Faces

The film clocked millions of views and had ample of repeat telecasts on television, which meant minimal interest in the Hindi version prior to it’s release. The author back in the day had felt the Shahid Kapoor film to be a “repeat telecast of the original” making it difficult to judge the film on an independent ground as it’s difficult to evoke same emotion in repeat viewing with different cast. Probably the audience evoked a similar feeling and skipped the film, due to the no novelty factor. The film flopped and got no footfalls. But does it mean – it’s a bad one? Not really, as Jersey was a faithful remake. But the issue rests with the idea of remaking films – cut copy paste – that are already dubbed in Hindi.

Cut to September 2022, as Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan led Vikram Vedha released. Again, the film was a honest and faithful remake of the 2017 original featuring R Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi. It was towered by Hrithik Roshan with a memorable performance – in-fact, one of his finest till date. But Vikram Vedha too suffered due to the remake factor. Of course, the numbers were 5x more than Jersey, but that’s primarily due to the starpower of Hrithik Roshan. You remove a superstar of his calibre, and the film would have ended sub 50 crore.

Hrithik Roshan delivers powerful act, but film doesn’t excite

Much like Jersey, Vikram Vedha too had a dubbed version with the same name available. The film was available in Hindi for free on YouTube, Hotstar and had enough screenings on Star Gold too. A large section of audience had already seen the original film for free, and the trailers indicated a replica of the same. In post pandemic world, where a large chunk of audience is in financial crunch, why would they want to revisit and experience the same emotion again with just different set of actors?

Cut to 2023 with the Kartik Aaryan and Kriti Sanon fronted Shehzada, which is another case study in itself. The film has opened to low numbers in the range of Rs 5.75 crore to 6.00 crore, and the trajectory from hereon doesn’t look impressive given that films in this genre are usually front loaded. To give a history, the makers stopped Manish Shah from releasing the Hindi version of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo in cinema halls and soon after, they also managed to stall the YouTube premiere. But here’s the catch, the Allu Arjun film had multiple screenings on the television in Hindi, which also got a pirated version up across the torrent platforms. The viewership of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo saw a different high following the release of Pushpa, which made Allu Arjun a force on merits in the Hindi belts.

What’s the solution – learn from Drishyam & Bholaa?

There is a large consumption of the dubbed version of these South Films particularly in the mass regions, which makes the idea of remakes a void in present context. The issue with Shehzada too isn’t the content, as that conversation comes it at a much later stage. The first and foremost factor for a film is to get audience excited to visit the cinema halls, which in post pandemic world is happening with fresh content. Good, bad or average is a different and subjective conversation altogether – but the issue rests with the fact that audience is no longer in mood to consume something they already did for free.

The only ones to benefit in the game of remake now are the producers of original film and the middle man (eg. Goldmine Telefilms) who has acquired the rights to screen the project in Hindi. The producers from South in today’s time are getting two bites of the same apple – getting monies from Hindi producers for a remake, getting monies from the middle man for dubbing it in Hindi. It’s time for them to chose one and it’s time for our producers to be smarter and put on the thinking cap.

Of course, there is an exception for Drishyam, but we need to address the elephant in the house. For major chunk of Indians, Drishyam (2015) is an original Ajay Devgn film and they resonated with the journey of Vijay Salgaonkar and family. That aside, Drishyam 2 (Mohanlal Film) never saw it’s dubbed version release ahead of Drishyam 2 (Ajay Devgn version) release. Next up is Selfiee, which again is a remake of a Malayalam film, but it was never dubbed in Hindi, which does give it a chance at the box office. If it works or fails – will be on merit of the Hindi version.

The above-mentioned films were faithful remakes of the original film, without much deviation from the original. And then there’s Bholaa coming up which seems like a reimagined version of Kaithi. From the looks of it, Ajay Devgn has taken things to the next level on the action front and hence, it would be interesting to observe how the film is received in the month of March. There’s Salman Khan’s Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan too which has tweaked the core plot of original film – Veeram. Let’s see how things pan out in the next few months. Hopefully, this pushes our writers and directors to imagine newer characters and fresher stories. One can be inspired from some industry, one can adapt a story – but a remake certainly seems like a bad idea in post covid world.

A Personal Experience!

On Friday noon, I was in a mobile shop waiting for the data transfer from old phone to the newer one. The process was taking time, when I happened to tell the shop keeper to fasten the process as I was going to watch Shehzada at 7.30 pm. His response was the writing on wall for me about the on-ground reach of Ala Vaikunthapuramuloo. He said, “Arey Sir…. Maine Allu Arjun Ki Picture Dekh Li Hain Ghar Pe Free Main…. Picture Mast Hain” To get more perspective, I asked, “But Aapne Kaha Dekhi? YouTube Par Toh Nahi Hai.” He smiled, “Sir Ghar Pe TV  Pe Dekhi Hain Aur Bahut Logon Ke Paas Mobile Pe Bhi Hain?” I stood there politely, and finally walked away with the thought in mind, “The reach of South Films dubbed in Hindi is very wider as its free for the consumer & the sensibilities across India are similar .”