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From 'K.G.F' to 'Kantara': How Hombale Films Took Kannada Cinema Global
Hombale Films isn’t chasing pan-India; it’s shaping it — through vision, risk, and rooted storytelling.
The brass figurines delicately laid out on the front desk of the Hombale Films office burst with stories: Rocky’s unrelenting Dodamma machine gun from K.G.F: Chapter 2 (2022), the swaggering Deva from Salaar (2023), and the evocative panjurli daiva, the boar deity from Kantara (2022) — all relics from blockbuster films that charted their own unique pan-Indian trajectories.
On this misty afternoon in Bengaluru, founder Vijay Kiragandur is thinking of the Thursday that changed Kantara’s fate. Rishab Shetty’s transcendental film, which enmeshed the roots of a Dakshina Kannada tradition with a land conflict drama, was meant to be a Kannada title, not a pan-Indian one. But the overwhelming response to its premiere show, a day before release, was all it took for the production house to discern its reach. “We decided to go all out.”
If there is a secret sauce to making a good pan-Indian film — a term that’s generously used by the average filmgoer today — preparedness perhaps tops Kiragandur’s laundry list, a trait without which Kantara would have remained a small Kannada film, instead of the ₹400-crore tentpole it eventually became. Hombale is almost always ready for everything, Kiragandur says, surmising its ethos. “Within two weeks, we were able to dub in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil. Luckily, we had those kinds of connections and were able to plan releases in various countries the same day. Call it divine intervention, but we were prepared.”
Home to some of the biggest blockbusters to come out of Indian cinema in recent years — the K.G.F films starring Yash cumulatively crossed ₹1,450 crore and Salaar, featuring Prabhas and Prithviraj Sukumaran, crossed ₹703 crore — the Bengaluru production company now has its eyes set on marquee collaborations beyond the south. Among Hombale’s enviable line-up is a Hrithik Roshan action drama. This is apart from a three-film deal with Prabhas, starting with a sequel to Salaar.
The soft-spoken producer is a straight shooter with words, but his articulation remains sharp. Having grown up watching films of Kannada cinema veterans Dr. Rajkumar, Ambareesh and Vishnuvardhan, Kiragandur has always been besotted with cinema. In one instance, the producer likens the diurnal need for food to the need for entertainment, recalling the purpose behind starting Hombale in 2012, with no background in films. “Entertainment will persist forever,” he says, speaking about the growing potential in entertaining a country with a population of 140 crore people. But the driving force of Hombale has been to take our cinema to the world. “When everyone is getting attracted to western stories, we want to tell our story.” And how does one do that? By always going and betting big, according to Kiragandur.
Chaluve Gowda, co-founder of Hombale Films, says it is perhaps Kiragandur’s eye for novelty that has rubbed off onto their banner’s personality. The ability to swim with sharks is another. That’s why their office is situated outside Gandhi Nagar, a cinema hub in the city. “We don’t think the same way others do. What he thinks is this — to make his first impression the best. He takes a lot of risks. He has that vision,” says Gowda, whose friendship with the producer spans over 35 years. The friends and business partners are both from Mandya, Karnataka.
Since their first production, Ninnindale — Puneeth Rajkumar’s Kannada language romcom that was released in 2014 — the design with Hombale has been to take Kannada cinema to the next level. “Even though we had options to do other movies, I was particular about waiting even for 2-3 years, but wanted to go big,” Kiragandur remembers. The film was shot in the United States for a 35-day period, which he recalls to be the first such instance for a Kannada film. Their biggest films would lay ahead, but the intention has remained singular since its beginning.
Hombale tasted its first big victory with Raajakumara in 2017, which became the highest-grossing Kannada film of all time, a record that the production company itself would go on to break with the K.G.F wave the next year. Hombale’s association with Rajkumar, a beloved actor in the industry and star of the film, was cut short with the actor’s sudden passing in 2021. Their last film together was Yuvarathnaa (2021). “He wanted to do different kinds of roles, and we’d often discuss the need for fresh talent in the industry. He was on track to do two films every year, and one among them was supposed to be with Hombale films,” says Kiragandur. Raajakumara proved to be a game changer that gave them the confidence to go bigger and better.
And bigger they went with Prashanth Neel’s K.G.F. The Kannada film had just about everything to tip it over to pan-Indian glory: the making of a mercenary, a mother’s dying wish, the intrigue of the gold mafia, and an incredibly in-form Yash.
Kiragandur’s 'aha' moment came when he saw the initial footage from the film. “We were generally talking among ourselves that it was getting bigger. So we thought we should take it outside Karnataka, otherwise it’ll be constrained to one industry,” he says. The team showed a showreel to Telugu filmmaker SS Rajamouli, who excitedly put them on to distributor Anil Thadani. The makers went all out with marketing, getting journalists across states — or “pan-Indian media,” as Kiragandur likes to put it — to Bengaluru for its trailer launch. And the rest, of course, was history.
Neel describes working with the producer as a personal and instinctive process. “He’s never afraid to dream big and more importantly, he gives you full freedom to explore that dream. With both K.G.F and Salaar, Vijay sir backed every creative decision, even the risky ones. That trust gives you a different kind of confidence as a filmmaker. He understands the pulse of the audience,” he says, admiring Kiragandur’s inclination to always think ahead.
Gowda, who has known Kiragandur since high school, observes here that both of them are first-generation producers. Was cinema ever a point of discussion for the high school kids? The two friends share a laugh. “We didn’t discuss movies, but had other things to talk about,” Gowda says. “Nobody ever thought we’ll be doing something like this and be successful. Both our fathers are agriculturists. We had no godfathers. He always wanted to do business, but I was working professionally. He told me once, ‘Why work for someone else when we can work for ourselves?’”
The production company today occupies a unique position, one where it oversees three successful franchises — sequels for K.G.F: Chapter 2, Kantara, and Salaar, are all in the works. Kiragandur attributes this consistency to two things: director and story, something that Hombale puts a lot of effort into recognising. With K.G.F, for instance, Neel instilled confidence in them with his 2014 action thriller Ugramm. “Having put so much money into its production, we could’ve never recovered that just from the Kannada industry,” he says of K.G.F, which is understood to be one of the most expensive Kannada films to have been released at the time. With Hombale, Neel believes Kannada cinema has truly taken flight. “Hombale has changed the game for Kannada cinema in every sense. Before K.G.F, our films rarely got attention outside Karnataka. But after that, the way people looked at Kannada films completely shifted.” According to the filmmaker, it further helps that the production house deems it important to invest in people and ideas, as much as it does in films. “Today, many young talents in Karnataka feel inspired and confident to think big. Hombale made that possible.”
But not every film is made to be pan-Indian by design. Hombale, which refuses to be complacent in this regard, does a mix of smaller films specific to regional audiences such as the Fahadh Faasil starrer Dhoomam (2023) in Malayalam and Keerthy Suresh’s Raghu Thatha (2024) in Tamil. “We should not get into the mood of thinking whatever we make will become pan-Indian. During the selection, we decide which films make the cut. Without this process, we risk failure.” And then, of course, there are outliers like Kantara that chart their own course. “For a movie to become successful, it should either connect culturally or it should make the audience feel like they are among the actors in the film. We have to start picking out these stories and tell others,” says Kiragandur, who believes “local” content has a linear relationship with “global” reach.
With their brand of production, Hombale wants to offer what they call the “emotional action” film. The hunt for emotion in scripts is persistent, something that can be distinguished in the writing of Rocky’s deep affection for his mother in K.G.F or Shiva’s ties to the Bhoota Kola in Kantara. “That is the one thing we always insist on,” says Kiragandur. In India, for people to relate to a script, a film needs to dwell on relationships, he maintains.
It is with this essence that they are collaborating with Hrithik Roshan, an actor who summons both action and emotion with ease, according to Kiragandur, who plans to produce one tentpole along with smaller titles every year. “The film is in its initial stages. We always wanted to do an original Hindi movie. Hrithik is such a big star, and I don’t think anyone can match his charisma. He is the perfect package for a producer and director.”
Over a decade ago, the producer’s vision for Hombale was simple: to take the Kannada industry to the world. What was once an ambitious raison d’être, has now reached fruition. “It’s happening,” Kiragandur smiles. “We wanted to tell our stories to everyone, and that vision is now fulfilled.”