The Success story of Pushpa: The Rise and Why Pushpa 2: The Rule is One of the Most Awaited Film of the Year..!!
It’s December, and it is also a month that is considered one of the biggest and most lucrative periods ever in the cinema industry. Indian cinema is also really looking forward to scoring well at the box office. We also have some ‘tentpole’ films that are expected to satiate the audience and make profitable wonders. Of course, the most important tentpole film of the month, and perhaps even the year, would be the Allu Arjun starrer Pushpa 2: The Rule.
Pushpa 2‘s potential is considered by many to be vastly huge. Even the B-Town trade experts expect it to shatter all the box office wonders made by the ‘domestic films’ of Bollywood. The impact caused by its predecessor, Pushpa: The Rise, back in the day, was just unprecedented. It was the first-ever Indian cinema to enter the 100cr weekend collection club in the post-pandemic era. Even in the North Indian market, Pushpa made a stir and made about 120cr in domestic nett box office numbers (surprisingly, more wonders than the first installment in the KGF series did). For all these reasons, the sequel, Pushpa 2, is considered a gigantic tool that could perhaps outrightly rewrite the box office history of Indian cinema itself.
But how did a film like Pushpa manage to work wonders back in the day? Now that’s a riddle even the box office trade artists can’t simply draw a conclusive answer for. Pushpa wasn’t generally received at the hands of trade analysts and wasn’t an initially remarkable success in Allu Arjun’s two favorite zones (Telugu states and Kerala) either. In fact, it surprisingly made its best impact among the audience in the North Indian zone. To be fair, it’s often considered by many that it’s the North Indian audience who are most excited for Pushpa 2, more than anyone in India. Let’s go back and discuss how and why Pushpa managed to become a sensational success and the kind of impact it had, among other things.
Era of ‘dubbed films’
The Bollywood industry often faced criticisms for remaking films, especially from the South Indian cinema, and some of it can’t be simply ignored. In fact, it started out in the 80s and is continuing even today. It was at this juncture that the North Indian media itself, on some point, decided to telecast the ‘dubbed versions’ of some of them. I mean, a lot of us might’ve at least seen some visuals or the ads of some of those films, like Aparichit, Meri Jung: One Man Army, Don No: 1, International Khiladi: The Iron Man, and so on. Of course, the main area of target among the South Indian cinema industries was Tollywood, aka the Telugu Cinemas.
Later, the ‘era of Goldmines’ changed the face of dubbed cinemas like forever. The impact of their one YouTube channel Goldmines, is clearly evident if we just look at both their subscriber count and the view count of their films, as they are even capable of competing with some of the highly viewed music videos on YouTube. The comment section of some of the films from the channel itself will give an idea about how much the audience from the North had embraced the films from the South, especially the Telugu cinemas. Funny enough, there was an incident where the makers of Shehzada themselves got threatened when Goldmines uploaded a dubbed version of the film’s original south version, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (which is also an Allu Arjun starrer).
Allu Arjun had already become a familiar name in the North due to the impact of his dubbed films. The release of Pushpa, in fact, reasserted his status in the North as a result. Everything about him, including his style and his dance moves, was already popular in the North at a low-key level, and it got accentuated big time when Pushpa hit the theaters. However, unlike in Prabhas’ case, (who became a star in the North with an evergreen blockbuster movie series like Baahubali) it was Allu Arjun’s ground-level impact that mostly made his film a success among the general audience and not the other way around. The success of Pushpa, on one side, is not just a reflection of the film’s ‘Word of Mouth’ but a reflection of the hype Allu Arjun built over the years.
Baahubali Impact and the Subsequent Demand for South Cinema
The Baahubali duology is a huge milestone in the history of Indian cinema, and the kind of impact it had on every film industry in the country is just huge beyond words. It crafted a new status for event cinemas and tentpole productions altogether as a result of its success. It also changed the face of ‘cinema experience’ at cinema halls.
The impact of Baahubali films also increased the demand for South films on a magnanimous level. Even Prabhas made films after films aiming at the North Indian market, with the main aim of capitalizing on his tag as the ‘hero from Baahubali films,’ even though a lot of such films ended up as huge failures. Following its impact came Prashanth Neel’s epic action-thriller film series KGF. It should also be noted that both Baahubali 2: The Conclusion and KGF: Chapter 2 remained the top two highest-grossing films ever in the North, completely toppling Aamir Khan’s Dangal (even though this film still remained the highest-grossing Indian cinema on a worldwide scale due to its massive success in China). It took some years for Bollywood to retain its status in their home territory with films like Pathaan, Jawan, Animal, Gadar 2 and the recently released Stree 2.
It was also the success of Baahubali films that mainly enhanced the brand value of the word ‘Presence Across Nation,’ aka the PAN Indian cinemas. Even a critical failure like Kabzaa made its name in the headlines because of its very tag. Kantara is another PAN Indian film that became a success at this point.
South stars became more familiar names at North as a result of it and people became more welcoming towards South cinema than they ever were. Even actors from Kerala like Fahad Fazil and Dulquer Salmaan became celebrated figures in the North as a result of all these. However, it should also be noted that not every films or every stars from the South had cracked this mark in the same way a Baahubali or KGF did and some of them became miserable failures. But nevertheless, this very wave also deeply challenged the ‘monopoly’ which Bollywood was enjoying for a while in the Indian cinema.
Dire Need of Masala Entertainers
While Bollywood at one point was revered for having some amazing films like Dangal, PK, 3 Idiots, and Secret Superstar, among their highest-grossing films, it also did pave the way for their downfall for some time. While the ratio between ‘mass films’ and ‘quality films’ at an early stage was quite equally proportional to each other, that scale changed, and the amount of ‘feel-good’ films supersaturated in terms of amount. While such supersaturation is generally considered hazardous for the cinema industry’s growth in general, the domination of the ‘feel-good’ genre over the action entertainers could cause even more troubles than the other.
This while didn’t cause any huge reduction in the ‘plex audience,’ did cause an enormous impact on the single-screen audience sector. To be precise, Bollywood cinema at one point also became too ‘metro-focused,’ and they became so alienated and lacking any relativity with the rural sector of the North (not including the films I mentioned in the above paragraph because they at least had some level of success with connecting with these audiences). The ticket charges were also accused of being unfairly high and not so easily spendable. In fact, the audience didn’t feel any need for spending a huge dime from their wages to enjoy any film on the big screen, as some of the films barely provided any ‘theater experience’ for them.
The audience was in dire need of enjoying a masala entertainer on the big screen. Salman Khan was at one point the sole provider of such films, and even he couldn’t manage it after one point due to his poor selections.
It was by making use of this dire need that the Telugu cinemas made a huge impact in the North and became serious competitors for Bollywood. As mentioned before, Baahubali films changed the face of the ‘cinema hall experience on a profound level’ and enhanced the need for such films and even action numbers. Telugu cinemas were always the masters of such large-scale action entertainers and larger-than-life heroes. Stars like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, and Ajay Devgan indeed enhanced their star value in the North with the style borrowed from the South, but with Telugu cinema’s direct move into the North Indian market, Bollywood struggled.
Pushpa had everything the audience wanted to enjoy in such films. And so, the mixed reception from the critical side became inconsequential at dampening its box office value in the North. It was also the very same reason why it didn’t make any comparable huge impact in the Telugu states or Kerala (two of Allu Arjun’s favorite zones, as mentioned before), as they were not in a needy stage for such films at that point.
( P. S. A reminder that fillms like Pathaan, Jawan and Gadar 2, became huge success at the box office because Bollywood made use of this situation well. )
Era of Pandemic
Now this could perhaps be the most important contributing factor of all for the success of Pushpa and the demand for Pushpa 2. Covid-19 had a profound impact in the world of entertainment industry and the side effects it caused still hasn’t fully mellowed down. Films were delayed, rescheduled and even dropped due to the effect of this pandemic. And I’m not just talking about Indian cinema but the World cinema itself. Even Pushpa is such a film which got repeatedly delayed due the efects of pandemic.
The pandemic however increased the market of streaming services and a lot of films and TV shows became exclusive for streaming hubs. This in turn made people lazy at making a stop at the cinema halls (whether it was single screens or multiplexes). The single screen audience were already having a bit of reluctancy towards the Bollywood due to the lack of any relativity, the audience felt at that time and this in turn got exacerbated with the era of Covid. In fact, this challenge still remains a bummer on some levels.
Pushpa was one of the first major releases that came out during the post-pandemic era, and it clearly caused a stir for all the reasons mentioned. Pushpa was one film where a ‘visit to the cinema halls’ was mandatory for getting hands on the best ‘cinema experience.’ Plus, it had all the factors of entertainment and masala and even made use of the situation where the audience wanted to enjoy entertainment on big screens without any huge ‘thought-provoking’ moments in it. The critical reception of the film had little to no impact in influencing the general audience in the North.
For all the reasons, Pushpa made its effect on Indian cinema, and its sequel, Pushpa 2, is expected to make some wonders at the cinema halls in some hours. None of us are sure about how big it could be, as the bookings at the PIC so far aren’t that huge as compared to previous predictions, although nothing at this point can be said about single screens and walk-ins in it, as Pushpa 2 is a film that is set to cause more stirs in the single-screen sector than in multiplexes. A lot of it also depends on how the film will turn out. Anyway, the maximum potential of ‘Pushpa Raj’ and his antics will be revealed and put to the best use at cinemas within a few hours, and that’s something we are all eagerly waiting to witness upon.