NRIs prefer South Indian cinema to Bollywood

Turns out that the Indian diaspora isn’t only crazy about Bollywood after all. The year 2011, so far, has proved the fact that South Indian films, especially those in Tamil and Telugu, are the ones that are drawing packed houses. Now, who’d have thought that South Indian actors like Prabhas and Jiiva could upstage an Abhishek Bachchan release overseas! In fact, this year has proved to be a landmark year for South Indian cinema. Slowly, but steadily, film-goers in the UK, USA and Australia are thronging theatres that are screening Tamil and Telugu films instead of something from Bollywood.

 “South Indian films are doing exceptionally well this year. Take the case of Telugu releases like Mr Perfect, Theenmaar and 100% Love or Tamil ones like Ko, Vaanam or Engeyum Kadhal, each has had bigger openings compared to Hindi films that released alongside them,” points out Taran Adarsh, film trade analyst. He adds, “The average business for most of these films, which release in 20 plus theatres is between $600 to $1,000. This is really good.”

Producer Allu Sirish, of Geetha Arts, said of their recent release 100% Love, “This film has had a great opening of Rs6.5 crore. This is without the overseas figures. And the overseas figures are looking good.” It is reported that this film made $650,000 on its opening day, last Friday. Taran attributes this to the fact that a majority of the Indian population overseas does comprise of South Indians. “Distributors are slowly becoming confident enough to release their films abroad. The success of films like Endhiran last year has been a great factor that has brought in this change,” he says.