Rani Mukerji on India’s Turbulent Theatrical Business: ‘South Indian Filmmakers Are Listening to Audiences’
variety.comNaman Ramachandran Bollywood A-list star Rani Mukerji was in refreshingly candid form at Mumbai’s FICCI Frames media industry conference, proffering frank opinions on the Indian theatrical business.
The usual Hindi-language domination of the all-India box office was reversed for a period in 2021-22, when films from the south of India, including “RRR,” “Kantara,” “Ponniyin Selvan” and “Vikram” dominated, and the northern counterparts from’ Bollywood’ struggled to become hits.
Since then, the north-south competition has evolved again. In 2023, there were only three south Indian films in the box office top 10, “Salaar,” “Jailer” and “Leo,” at numbers four, six and seven, respectively.
However, Hindi-language films made by south Indian filmmakers – “Jawan” in pole position and “Animal” in third – performed exceedingly well. “They listen to what the audiences want,” Mukerji said. “When cinema is evolving and everybody’s trying to cater to a diverse audience, sometimes you lose touch with the popular or the massive want of an audience to see simple storytelling, as opposed to storytelling, which is more diverse or more evolved and more for a certain section of audiences.
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