Growing southern film wave likely to hit early acquisition players

The growing popularity of south Indian films across the country in multiple languages may soon spell some trouble for players like Goldmines Telefilms which were among the first to secure rights for Hindi dubs of these movies on their satellite and YouTube channels. For one, major OTT players including foreign giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are now competing to secure rights to big tent-pole southern films whose rates have spiked by 20-30% in the past two years alone.

Further, several southern producers are retaining Hindi rights for themselves to be able to cash in on remakes later. That said, companies like Goldmines still have a vast array of non-star, small-scale films to choose from and could be some time away from truly feeling the heat.

“Things have definitely changed as far as acquisition of southern language films goes, there are three to four big suitors for any star vehicle or big-ticket film and the prices are spiking,” said Yusuf Shaikh, business head, feature films at production and distribution company Percept Pictures.

Apart from major players like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar who are looking to build regional content libraries, media industry experts say a number of language-specific OTT players have come up in the past few months. Plus, there are homegrown services like VOOT and aha Video vying for these rights.

“The market for south Indian films is at an all-time high, so the producers don’t want to give away remake or dubbing rights that easily. Even their actors charge massive fees. Producers feel they can only plan bigger-sized films going ahead if they make enough from the rights of previous films,” Shaikh said explaining why bigger acquisition fees seem attractive to southern producers.

Manish Shah, founder and director of Goldmines Telefilms, whose YouTube channel Goldmines and TV channel Dhinchaak (renamed Goldmines Movies recently) are known to cater to young, small-town, mobile-savvy audiences hooked to dubbed southern film fare, did not respond to Mint’s queries on these recent challenges.

Film distributor and exhibitor Sunny Khanna said when there is a new person offering bigger money, old players have to try and match up too. “The other challenge is southern producers may want to keep Hindi remake rights to themselves, something that can bring them up to ₹25 crore if the film has been a hit in the original language,” Khanna explained.

To be sure, not all is lost yet for players like Goldmines that were the earliest entrants in the Hindi dubbing market. Media industry experts say the enthusiasm of bigger OTT players is restricted to the top crust of big southern language hits featuring popular stars for now.

“There are several films featuring the second rung of stars, with good action and comedy that can do very well on Hindi satellite and digital platforms. Plus, a lot of producers are wary of working with corporates and may prefer players like Goldmines that offer money up front,” said independent trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai.