Heading South: The Cinema of The South Is Now The Cinema Of India

The ‘Heading South’ series is a monthly catch-up on all things relevant in South Indian entertainment and pop-culture

2024 has been a year when Tamil cinema’s middle-order heroes were promoted to lead the opening order. Sivakarthikeyan scored big with Amaran, while Dhanush and Vijay Sethupathi crossed double-century numbers with Raayan (a splendid directorial by Dhanush) and Maharaja respectively. Strangely, heroes who have monopolised the Tamil box-office have always emerged in pairs: beginning with PU Chinnappa and MK Thyagaraja Bagavathar, followed by MG Ramachandran-Sivaji Ganesan, Kamal Haasan-Rajinikanth (the two stars who have remained on top for the last 50 years), Suriya-Vikram, Vijay-Ajith, Simbu-Dhanush and now Vijay Sethupathy-Sivakarthikeyan.

While Maharaja ran despite social media chatter (it had a problematic, triggering portrayal of sexual abuse), Amaran’s run proves that if a producer knows how to whip up social media and also promote a film robustly offline, it will garner more footfalls. It’s interesting that both Vijay Sethupathi and Sivakarthikeyan’s characters are not stereotypical. They both play common men who become heroes and there are no acrobatics in the name of stunts. Sivakarthikeyan, who has only played mass, entertainer roles earlier, took on the role of the late Major Mukund Varadarajan in Amaran.

New-age filmmakers (Nithilan with Maharaja and Rajkumar with Amaran) shifted storytelling gears, catapulting their heroes to the top. Maharaja was recently screened in China, the latest business market for Indian cinema, whereas Netflix registered a record number of views globally for Amaran post its theatrical run. The success of these two films is proof that good content will thrive irrespective of screen size. The pre-existing notion that cinema for the big screen is different from cinema for the small screen should (ideally) vanish. Only engaging cinema sells anywhere, screen size notwithstanding. A movie hall viewing and a drawing room/mobile viewing experience are poles apart, but one thing that remains common is the quality of storytelling, which filmmakers and producers have the onus of delivering.

If the Tamil industry saw a new order consolidating their wins, Telugu cinema saw a leap for Prabhas and now Allu Arjun, with Kalki: 2898 AD and Pushpa 2. Both these films raced past the 1000 crore mark comfortably and are setting new records to beat. Nag Ashwin’s Kalki (releasing in Japan soon) is proof of what good casting, good filmmaking and good storytelling can do to the box-office. Amitabh Bachchan’s craft saw an awe-inspiring jump (literally, given the number of action scenes in the film) and the pan-Indian factor went beyond the cast (Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone, Shobana) as the film brought to life the Mahabharata’s universally appealing Karna story. The Telugu box-office also saw a non-Telugu hero, Dulquer Salman, deliver a thumping win with Lucky Bhaskar. Dulquer perhaps is the only star after Kamal Haasan to have solo box-office successes in a language that’s not his mother tongue.

 Malayalam cinema, as always, gave us non-star hits too (like Kishkindha Kaandam), along with Prithviraj’s magnum opus Aadujeevitham and Fahadh’s gregarious Aavesham. But ahead of them all is Chidambaram’s blockbuster Manjummel Boys, which sparkled brightly across borders, beyond the Kerala box-office. These directors took up stories that stood out, turning them into outstanding cinema as well. But in the Indian film industry, it’s always the hero who gets the first garland, followed by the filmmaker and then the heroine. I’d be really glad if this changes in 2025, with heroines and (women) filmmakers becoming as relevant to a film’s business as their male counterparts.

Kannada cinema’s best contribution to south cinema came in 2023 itself in the form of a heroine who is now working in other South languages. Rukmini Vasanth (of the Sapta Sagaradaache Ello films) had the successful Bhairathi Ranangal in 2024 with Shivaraj Kumar. With the doors now opening wider for our heroines to work across languages, the sneak-peek of the Telugu film Ghaati (a 2025 release) also heralds the return of the ‘Queen’ Anushka Shetty.

2025 is the year we will see Ajith Kumar back on-screen with two films, both starring Trisha. This is also the year Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan will compete for box-office might with two happening directors, Lokesh Kanagaraj and Mani Ratnam (happening since 1983). Lokesh’s Coolie  also stars Nagarjuna and Aamir Khan, while Mani Ratnam’s Thug Life has Silambarasan (Simbu), and Trisha with AR Rahman composing the score (the teaser track ‘Vinnveli Nayaga’ has already soared across the charts). Vijay will see his penultimate release in 2025. In the Malayalam film industry, Mammootty and Mohanlal will star together after decades. And for Kannada film buffs, Yash has Geethu Mohandas’s Toxic, also starring Nayanthara.

We are talking about the cinema of the South rising to single-handedly become the cinema of India, aren’t we?