The 1000-crore club: ‘Baahubali’ to ‘Pushpa’, Telugu cinema’s box office juggernaut Premium

Pushpa 2: The Rule becomes fastest Indian film to hit ₹1,000-crore mark, leading Telugu cinema's global success. A look at how Telugu cinema has had four films in the 1000-crore club - Baahubali, RRR, Kalki and Pushpa.

The makers of Pushpa 2: The Rule announced that theirs had been the fastest Indian film to breach the ₹1,000-crore mark at the box office, within a week since its worldwide release on December 5, with premieres in the Telugu States on the night of December 4. 

This is the fourth Telugu film to have crossed the ₹1,000-crore mark, following Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017), RRR(2022) and Kalki 2898 AD (2024). The other Indian films in the ₹1,000-crore club are the Hindi sports drama Dangal (2016), the Kannada action drama KGF: Chapter Two (2022), and the 2023 Hindi action entertainers Pathaan and Jawan.

The watershed moment for Telugu cinema began with SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali films. With that, the term ‘pan India cinema’ came into vogue, and a handful of Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam movies eyed similar box office receptions. 

Movies from the southern states have travelled far and wide even earlier, through dubbed versions and remakes. Sureshbabu Daggubati, one of Telugu cinema’s veteran producers, recalls an early example — Chandralekha (1948): “The Tamil film (directed by S S Vasan) was considered to be an average grosser but the Hindi version (for which some scenes were reshot, with a few changes in the cast) was a big hit. Over the decades, several Telugu films such as Ramudu Bheemudu and Chanti were remade in other languages. Today, Telugu films dubbed in other languages are widely accepted. I spotted a social media post stating that this year’s biggest hit — Pushpa 2 — is led by a Telugu actor (Allu Arjun) who does not speak Hindi. It is not an exaggeration.”

Sureshbabu attributes the success of the two Baahubali and Pushpa films, RRR and Kalki, to their ability to appeal to people at the grassroots levels. “There was a period when Hindi cinema did not consider ‘mass’ cinema as fashionable; some of their narratives catered to the NRI viewers. They considered these mass masala narratives tacky, but it has witnessed a resurgence. Our films have been more emotionally rooted; we have a better understanding of the traditional Indian ‘mass’ audience as well as the tastes of our Telugu software engineers living overseas. Our marketing has also become stronger.”

The marketing of Pushpa-The Rise began days before its release in December 2021, when director Rajamouli, sensing the film’s potential, urged its director Sukumar and producers Mythri Movie Makers to dub the film in Hindi. 

Anurag Reddy, co-founder of marketing agency First Show, observed how Allu Arjun’s character, Pushparaj, resonated with the audiences in the Hindi-speaking heartland. “The working class felt represented when Pushpa sat cross-legged after toiling to earn his wages, unmindful of his employer’s presence.” The ‘thaggede le’ (‘jhukega nahi’ in Hindi) catchphrase caught on like wildfire. In Pushpa 2: The Rule, Pushparaj states that his name is not only synonymous with fire, but wildfire!