Prabhas to Vijay Deverakonda: Is scale swallowing the soul in Telugu films?

From pan-India stars like Prabhas and Allu Arjun to local gods like Nani and Vijay Devarakonda, the obsession for scale and spectacle has made the traditional family entertainer a rare spectacle in Telugu cinema.

If you mention Telugu cinema in a room outside the Telugu states today, someone will bring up the scale of Mahishmathi from S. S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali films. Or the interval stretch in RRR, where Jr NTR storms forward with animals beside him. Or Prabhas emerging as Karna in Kalki 2898 AD. Or Allu Arjun as Pushpa Raj in Pushpa 2: The Rule, standing defiant and refusing to bow.

The vocabulary attached to Telugu cinema now revolves around scale, spectacle, pan-India reach, VFX-heavy worlds and mythic arcs. It is a reputation earned through effort, risk and refusal to stay boxed into a regional identity when the canvas could stretch across the country and beyond.

Young actors and their choices reflect this shift, gravitating towards scale-heavy, intensity-driven narratives. From Prabhas at the very top to Vijay Deverakonda among the new generation, the change in priorities is hard to miss.

The question: Is this what Telugu cinema was wholly meant to be about? For those who grew up loving Tollywood fare, this was never meant to be the full story.

Long before universes and global box office tallies became markers of success, Telugu films were building something quieter and far more difficult — emotional spaces that felt lived in.

A hero could be mass and vulnerable within the same frame without that vulnerability being treated as weakness. A family argument could generate more tension than a battlefield. A romantic hesitation could carry more weight than a drawn sword.