Anupam Kher and others on South Indian versus Bollywood films: What is the fuss all about?

In a recent interview, Bollywood actor Anupam Kher, whose latest Telugu film Karthikeya 2 is one of the highest-grossing films this year, shared his two bitys on why South Indian movies are doing well at the box office while big-budget Bollywood films struggle to leave a mark or even bring in the numbers.

During his interview with ETimes, Anupam said that the rfeal problem starts the day filmmakers starting looking at the audience as people they are doing "favours" to. 

"Greatness is achieved by a collective effort and that I have learnt by doing films in Telugu...I just did another film in Telugu, I did a film in the Tamil language, I’m going to do a Malayalam film," Anupam Kher told the entertainment news portal.

The actor, whose last Hindi film The Kashmir Files crossed the 100-crore mark at the box office, said that unlike Bollywood, the South Indian film industry does its own thing. 

"... I think (their) cinema is relevant because they are not aping Hollywood. They are telling stories, over here we are selling stars," he added. 

In order to understand the noise around these two industries, we need to understand the demarcation.

WHAT IS A PAN-INDIA FILM?

The short and simplified answer to what a Pan-India film lies, as opposed to a hardcore Bollywood film or a South-Indian film, in its sensibilities and the number of languages the said film is released in. In that regard, SS Rajamouli's Baahubali 1 & 2 burst onto mainstream Bollywood for catering to the cinematic palatte of people across all communities, and different age groups. Similarly, other Southern smash hits like RRR and KGF 1 & 2 opened new doors for South-Indian actors to find their place in an otherwise Hindi-donimated Bollywood belt. 

With Kher's Karthikeya 2, where Telugu star Nikhil Siddhartha plays the lead, raking in big moolah, that langauge-based barrier has slowly started to dwindle away. 

THE PAN-INDIA VS BOLLYWOOD DEBATE

Mahesh Babu famously said in May of this year that he doesn't want to "waste time" in Bollywood as they cannot pay his fees. "I did get a lot of offers in Hindi, but I don’t think they can afford me. I don’t want to waste my time working in an industry which can’t afford me," he was quoted as saying by India Today.

He then went on to add that the love and respect he enjoys back home is unmatched, and he doesn't wish to give up on that. "The stardom and the respect I get here (in South) is huge, so I never really thought of leaving my industry and going to some other industry," added the megastar.

Taking this debate ahead, rather unflatteringly, was Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who, while congratulating Ram Charan and Chiranjeevi for their success with RRR asked why are 'their' movies doing well in Bollywood and Hindi films not doing well down South. 

"I am very proud of him (referring to Ram Charan). It feels so good that he is doing so well. But, I wonder why our films are not doing so well in the South. Their films are doing so well here," the actor was cited as saying by Pinkvilla. 

On this 'them vs us' topic, Dhanush has also spoken out in the past, saying he doesn't see actors as 'North Indian' or 'South Indian' but only as Indian actors. 

Haddi actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui feels the biggest mistake Bollywood made was that it kept on re-making Southern films and not come up with something that is truly original in nature. "... One mistake that happened is that we kept doing remakes of South films. The biggest problem here is with the writers and stories, we are not making originals at all, leaving everything up to the remakes. I think we should take a lesson from that mistake and start making original films. That would be better," he said during an interview, as reported by ScoopWhoop. 

"... I think the Hindi film industry has forgotten the larger-than-life heroism. But the Southern industries didn’t forget heroism," Sanjay Dutt was quoted as saying after KGF 2 broke new records, number-wise. 

Kareena Kapoor Khan, too, joined the conversation and said that she "truly respects" Southern films but the only problem is that she cannot relate to their content, as an actor, because of the language barrier. "I truly respect all south films. They have great content, I respect and admire them. There are great actors from Pawan, Rajinikanth sir to Mammooty sir. There is so much great work being done in Telugu or Malayalam films. I don't understand the language and so I feel the connection will not be there. That's the only problem."

The best way to sum it up is by quoting superstar Ajay Devgn, who, when asked about the whole debate around these two industries, once said, "There’s nothing South or North. It’s the Indian film industry. They are also doing the same thing, we are also doing the same thing."

Telugu star Vijay Deverakonda's Liger receiving underwhelming response in a Bollywood film is a classic example of the point Devgn had tried to drive home.