Telugu cinema is in need of blockbusters. Can ‘Kushi’, ‘Skanda’ and ‘Salaar’ change the tide?

September and October are crucial months for Telugu cinema after a dismal summer. Can ‘Kushi’, ‘Skanda’, ‘Salaar’, ‘Bhagavanth Kesari’ and ‘Tiger Nageswara Rao’ bring box office cheer?

The ten-award-haul at the 69th National Film Awards announced last week brought cheer to the Telugu film industry in an otherwise dull month. Barring the Telugu dubbed version of Rajinikanth-starrer Jailer, the industry did not have significant box office hits in August. All eyes are on a few big-ticket films lined up for September and October, beginning with the Samantha-Vijay Deverakonda romance drama Kushi, which will release on September 1. The film that is perceived to have the potential to rewrite box office records, though, is director Prashant Neel’s Prabhas-starrer Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire, arriving on September 28. 

The other films scheduled to release in the festive months of September and October include director P Mahesh Babu’s Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty (Anushka Shetty and Naveen Polishetty), director Boyapati Srinu’s Skanda - The Attacker (Ram Pothineni and Sree Leela), director Anil Ravipudi’s Bhagavanth Kesari (Nandamuri Balakrishna) and Tiger Nageswara Rao (Ravi Teja). The industry hopes these films will ring in considerable numbers after the disappointing summer, with no big hits between April and June. 

The romance drama Baby, which received a polarising response critically, was a smash hit at the box office soon after its release in mid-July. The film, made with a budget of ₹10 crore, has reportedly earned more than ₹85 crore (worldwide gross).

Says Baby’s director Sai Rajesh, “This year, only three films — Chiranjeevi’s Waltair Veerayya, Rajinikanth’s Jailer, and Baby — earned more than a crore in the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana circuits for the first 13 days. As far as I remember, this has been the weakest summer at the box office.” Adipurush, Ravanasura, Shaakuntalam, Agent, Custody and Spy did not succeed. 

Pawan Kalyan and Sai Dharam Tej’s Bro and Chiranjeevi’s Bhola Shankar that arrived in July and August, also turned out to be box office dampeners. 

Sai Rajesh avers that the audience, habituated to watching better content across languages on digital platforms during the pandemic, want something other than run-of-the-mill narratives. “A big star can attract the audience on day one. The footfalls will be sustained only if there is good word-of-mouth publicity. Small- and medium-budget films have to be more than just feel-good entertainers. They have to be good to generate a buzz.”

Between 2020 and 2022, it was widely believed that only big-budget films with A-list stars could bring the audience back to the theatres. Pushpa - the Rise, KGF: Chapter Two and RRR were cited as examples. Balagam, Baby and Samajavaragamana are exceptions to that perception.