How A Businessman Built The World’s Biggest Youtube Movie Channel

To understand the influence of Manish Shah’s Goldmines Telefilms, both a television and YouTube channel, one has to understand the massive scale of its numbers. For context, the Hindi dub of Kannada blockbuster KGF and its sequel collectively have 1,100 million views. That is the combined population of US, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil, suggesting that one in six people have seen Rocky bhai kick ass. With those numbers, Shah appears to have found a Goldmine. The Hollywood Reporter India asked him how he crafted this success story:

When did you first sense the potential of taking dubbed South Indian movies to the Hindi audience?

In the early 2000s, a lot of multiplexes came up in North Indian cities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Ahmedabad. Producers then started to make films that were more suited to these multiplexes, focusing on comedies, rom-coms and love stories. They missed out on action movies, which single-screen audiences loved. That was the case with television as well.

Which films do you think started this phase of multiplex cinema? Karan Johar attributes it to films like Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and Lagaan (2001).

I would say it’s more Dil Chahta Hai. They started making films for that taste. Even today, I think we are in such a situation because of that trend. Last week’s films (Jigra and Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video) too are not doing well.

What was different in the South?

Multiplexes were coming up in the South too but good action movies continued to be made. I wanted to explore the idea of bringing them here. Since I could get the rights of those films for cheap, I gave it a shot.

Which was the film that gave you the confidence to keep trying?

I bought the rights of a Telugu film called Mass (2004) and dubbed it to Meri Jung: One Man Army. It got one of the highest TRPs on Sony MAX. That gave me confidence.

Were you a fan of that film?

At first, I used to buy films only after I had watched them. But after a point, these decisions were based on the director, hero, producer and writer.

What I find fascinating about your judgment is how there are many films on your channel with 100 or 200 million views. But these films were originally flops in the South.

That’s how we built this channel. A hit or a flop in the original language still became a hit in Hindi because of our changes. We re-edit, we have re-added deleted scenes and we even rework the screenplay. We have changed jokes, we have changed things that were not working culturally. We have done everything to make it more entertaining for the Hindi audience.

Can you give an example of changes you made to make films more “culturally” palatable?

In some South movies, we see plot points in which cousins get married to each other. The hero might marry his uncle’s daughter. We also see movies in which a girl’s coming-of-age ceremony is celebrated. The logic is, “now my daughter is ready for marriage”. That does not happen in the North. So we change that to the girl’s 18th birthday.

How do you change movies in which cousins get married?

I make the girl the daughter of her father’s friend, and we convey that through the dialogue. Similarly, in Tamil, we see people dancing right after a death. It is treated like a celebration, like in Soorarai Pottru (2020). In such cases, I just edit out the dancing scene. All this ensures that the sensibilities of the Hindi audience are not hurt.

You mentioned action. But apart from genre, isn’t star power also also a consideration when you buy a film’s rights?

When you talk about Ram Charan as a star today, you have to understand that we put out his movies back in 2010, before RRR (2022). Not many people knew him here. Every movie at that time had a massive budget. The action was better and the storytelling was improving. Star power came later.

At what stage did you start focusing on the quality of dubbing? In the 90’s, it was impossible to watch Hindi dubs of South Indian movies.

Right from the moment we got into it. Within three to four years, we even built our own dubbing studios. We never looked at the cost of dubbing. We also started to get stars to dub - Shreyas Talpade, Krushna Abishek, Jay Soni, Ashish Choudhary. Quality obviously improved.

A lot of the top videos on the channel are action films. An anomaly is a film like Madam Geeta Rani, with 380 million views. It stars Jyothika and it’s a social drama about a teacher improving a government school. It was an average hit in Tamil when it released as Raatchasi in 2019.

It’s a film that did very well on Sony MAX, so some people may have found it on YouTube after seeing parts of it on TV.

Did the numbers surprise you?

No, it’s a very good movie. I can give you other examples. There is a Tamil film called Anjaan (2014), which was a flop there but a hit for us. Nayanthara’s Dora (2017) was just an average hit in Tamil when we dubbed it in Hindi as Kanchana The Wonder Car. NTR’s Sakthi (2011) was a flop in Telugu but a huge hit in Hindi. The taste is very different here.

When you bought Anjaan, was it because you had understood this diversity in taste?

Sometimes you buy a film after it releases, after you watch it. But sometimes you buy it after a narration from the writer. I have bought films based on just the names involved. I’m not going to inquire about the story when it’s a Rajamouli film. Same with Atlee and Lokesh Kanagaraj.

As a businessman, is there more joy in dubbing a flop into a super hit?

You want every film you buy to become a blockbuster. That is my only mindset. I don’t want to depend on what’s working in the South. I have a different logic. Today, if I buy a movie before its release, what is the guarantee that it is going to work? So my mindset is that it has to become a hit. I’m ready to re-edit the film, re-work it, do whatever.

Can you give me an example of a film you re-edited to success?

Anjaan.

Did you cut scenes?

No no. The Tamil version of that movie was non-linear. I made the Hindi version linear. I completely shuffled the edit. Lingusamy (the director) said in an interview that the film would have been a blockbuster if he’d done what Goldmines did.

What about Kanchana The Wonder Car?

My version is from the point of view of the car. Our movie talks about the car and the ghost in it. It is not about Nayanthara’s character. Shakti was also made linear.

There was also a super flop Allu Arjun film called Varudu (2010). We made it a super hit. A lot of it was about marriage customs. We removed most of those portions.

Does being able to suggest such changes require an understanding of both the South and Hindi audiences?

There are multiple things. You need to know what the audience wants. Secondly, you need to know what is working in a film and what isn’t. You need to understand at which point the viewer will feel bored. When you start doing all this, you learn how to fix films.

Is it important for a channel that’s also on satellite television to start transitioning to the digital space?

No no. Even now, Goldmines is the number one movie channel on TV. We are doing equally well on satellite and YouTube. We’re earning an annual revenue of Rs 400 crore on TV, so the focus is the same.

What can you tell me about your audience?

We have a base in metros, as well as tier 2, tier 3 cities, right down to villages. No one is going to say no to entertainment.

Did you sense a change in the Hindi market when Wanted (2008) and Ghajini (2008), both South Indian remakes, became blockbusters in Hindi?

In Bollywood, they always want to target multiplexes. See how Akshay Kumar did Rowdy Rathore (2012). It’s a South movie. When he cracked that market, why would he do rom-coms after? It takes 100 to 120 days to make an action movie. You can make a rom-com in 40 to 45 days. You don’t need much effort to make rom-coms. Today, Allu Arjun has worked for 300 days to make Pushpa 2 (2024). Which Hindi actor is going to act for 300 days? This is the problem.

What about the reverse scenario? The views for the Hindi dub for Jersey (2019) or Ala Vaikuntapuramaloo (2020) are huge. But the remakes of neither worked. Do you think your dubs were one of the reasons people didn’t watch it in theatres? 

Yes! They had seen the dubbed version already and they didn’t want to watch it again. But I cannot answer for what was going on in the producers’ mind.

The dubbed version of Vijay’s Bodyguard (2011) is doing very well on your channel. It released after the Hindi remake but the comments are all people saying the Tamil version is better.

You’ll find many such comments under the video of Kanchana (2011) too. They say it is much much better than Laxmii (2020). Why did the Hindi film flop? Because there was a lot of interference. They should have just let the director make the same movie.

Can you tell me a bit about the thought that goes into the titles? In some cases, you’ve retained the original Telugu title, even if it does not translate. In others, like Jilla (2014), it becomes Policewala Gunda 2.

In Marathi, ‘jilla’ means district. It might mean that in Tamil too but it does not have another in Marathi. I felt like it would not make sense here.

Do you sit in on such decisions too?

Yes, on titles, on edits. Everything. Even scripting. It is my call.

You just released a Hindi dub of a Malayalam movie called Cold Case (2021). You renamed it Police Story 2.

How does a title like Cold Case resonate with that film? It is a police investigation. The haunted refrigerator is such a small part of the film.

Can you tell me about your decision to buy the Hindi dub rights for Pushpa: The Rise (2021)? You might have understood Allu Arjun’s fanbase by then. Was it also because of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo’s (2020) success?

The dubbed version of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo released after Pushpa, so it was not that. I bought the rights because Pushpa’s story was different. It was a story in which the hero was a negative character from the first to last scene. He is not a Robin Hood character who robs the rich to give to the poor. He is a grey guy who wants to make it big in the world of smuggling. He has no morals or principles. It was not seen before in Hindi cinema.

Will you be distributing the second part?

If it comes within my budget. Let’s see.

How much has the value of dubbing rights changed over the years? I read in an interview that you had first bought the rights for Mass (2004) for just Rs7 lakh.

I can’t talk about the commercial details. But (my investment) has grown multiple hundred times.  I bought Mass for Rs7 lakh. I bought Varudu (2010) for Rs10 lakh. Now it’s worth more than Rs20 crore.

Were you expecting Baahubali (2015) to be such a blockbuster in the North? You might have been one of the first to understand its potential.

Yes, the audience was already just waiting for that one film to be attractive enough to make them want to go to the theatre. They did that with Baahubali.

What is the language-wise breakdown of movies on your channel? 

The largest percentage is Telugu, then Tamil. Then Malayalam and Kannada.

What is the one film you’re expecting to be the next big hit?

The Rajamouli-Mahesh Babu film.