The Pushpa effect: Goldmine Telefilms head Manish Shah decodes the rise and success of dubbed South films

As the world shut down in early 2020, Manish Shah of Goldmines Telefilms, that has an 80 per cent market share of dubbed South Indian films, began thinking of what the next steps for his business could be. “I thought dubbed films are doing so well on television and also digitally on our YouTube channel, so why not a theatrical release,” he remembers. He was buoyed by the success of the Hindi versions of the _Baahubali_ franchise (2015 and 2017) and _KGF: Chapter 1_ (2018). “We decided that the next big film we add to our library will have a theatrical release and it just happened to be Allu Arjun’s _Pushpa: The Rise_,” he adds.

The first instalment of the two-part gangster drama, Pushpa: The Rise is a Telugu action drama about a daily wager who goes on to lead a smuggling syndicate. The film’s Hindi version was released across India at about 1600 screens on 17 December 2021 and seven weeks later, has earned Rs 100 crores at the box office. Shah had released Hindi versions of films like Allu Arjun’s Sarrainodu (2016) and DJ (2017) and Pawan Kalyan’s Katamarayudu (2018) but nothing as big as Pushpa: The Rise. “People say that after a film comes on OTT, the theatrical numbers start falling. We are going to end Week 7 at Rs 6 crores so this means that people are still going to see the film in theatres even though the film is available on Amazon Prime. This just proves that people want to enjoy a movie on the large screen,” says the 52-year-old.

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Shah’s journey into the world of dubbed South Indian films started in 2007 with Mass (2004), a Telegu film starring Nagarjuna. “Around this time, single screen theatres were being replaced by multiplexes and filmmakers who made masala action movies started making films that were multiplex friendly. There was a shortage of action movies from 2005 onwards but that’s what satellite channels wanted.” Shah, who until then was dabbling as a producer of television serials, decided to take a gamble with a slate of three or four films. “I only picked movies by stars who had done Hindi films in the past so there was name-recall among the audience. I went with Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna and Rajnikanth. We got Indra - The Tiger, Meri Jung - One Man Army and there was no looking back.” The Mumbai based producer bought Mass for Rs 7 lakhs and today the rates for such films have jumped to over Rs 20 crores.

Goldmines Telefilms’ library today has about 1000 titles starring some of the biggest names of Tamil and Telegu cinema like NTR Jr, Ram Charan, Surya and Vijay. Amitabh Bachchan’s Sooryavansham (1999) has a very special place in this library.

A Hindi remake of the Tamil film Suryavamsam (1997), the film features Amitabh Bachchan in a double role and was a box office dud. It got a fresh lease of life when its satellite rights were bought by Sony Set Max and a little more than two decades later, its frequent telecasts have given it pop culture might. “Sooryavansham is an iconic film that has been working on satellite for decades now. No one knows why it works but it does.”

Apart from theatrical releases, Shah’s business is focused on his movies tv channels, Dhinchaak and Dhinchaak 2. Launched in 2020, the former airs South Indian films dubbed in Hindi while the second channel ‘primarily plays Bollywood movies from the 1960s-2000s’. “Dhinchaak is currently the No. 1 movie channel in Hindi speaking markets (rural) and No 2 in Hindi speaking markets (urban) behind Star Gold and ahead of Zee Cinema and Sony Max. I am sure we’ll be number one soon once we air big movies like Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, Bheeshma, Mersal and of course, Pushpa: The Rising.”

Dhinchaak and other channels that air dubbed films have played a huge role in the success of Pushpa: The Rising. “When we started in 2007, people didn’t want to watch dubbed films and now they are rushing to the theatres. People have been talking about theatres not surviving but I know of people who saw the film on OTT and then re-watched it on the big screen because it’s that kind of a film. You can’t compete with the big screen experience.”

While it’s not an exact science, Shah believes there is a trick to picking films that will appeal to a cross-section of Indians. “People want to watch larger than life cinema. They want films that have a unique story, along with action, great songs and the X-factor. In the case of Pushpa, that X-factor was the film’s backdrop and the fact that it took Allu Arjun out of his comfort zone.” And, then comes the dubbing. “You have to understand the content and the cultural differences state-wise. Like in some communities in the South, cousins are allowed to marry, which is a taboo in Hindi speaking parts. So, that has to be changed to ‘friend’s daughter’. There’s a customary celebration when a girl attains puberty, so we change that to 18th birthday celebration for the Hindi belt. There are a lot of changes that have to be made to make the story familiar to the Hindi audience. We are tweaking things all the time in dubbing.”

Shah’s next big theatrical release was supposed to be the Hindi version of Allu Arjun’s Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020) but his plans were stalled because the film is already being remade in Hindi as _Shehzada_ with Kartik Aaryan and Kriti Sanon in the lead. Reportedly Arjun, who is the producer of both versions, convinced Shah to not release the film theatrically because it would affect the prospects of Shehzada when it does release. “If a movie has a grand Hindi release, it doesn’t have remake value. People have already experienced the film,” he explains. The Hindi version of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo will now release directly on Dhinchaak on 13 Feb. He sounds philosophical when asked about the missed opportunity to make another killing at the box office, saying “things need to keep moving”.

Author of Parveen Babi: A Life, Karishma Upadhyay has been writing about movies and movie stars for almost two decades. On Twitter, she goes by @karishmau.