[Worldwide, the film earned $120 million during its first week, making it the highest-grossing Indian box-office release of all time. It remained in the U.S. box office’s Top 10 over the weekend, hanging on at No. 7 and earning nearly $3.25 million, bringing its estimated two-week tally in the U.S. and Canada to more than $16 million.]
By Shashank Bengali
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"Baahubali
2: The Conclusion" became the highest-grossing Indian film in history
in just one week of release. (Arka Media
Works)
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If you’ve been to the movies recently, you
might have glimpsed it — an unfamiliar name alongside the latest from Tom
Hanks, Vin Diesel, Disney’s Belle and her Beast.
The swords-and-armor epic “Baahubali 2: The
Conclusion” doesn’t exactly have that Hollywood pedigree. But it debuted in the
U.S. as the third top box-office draw, making nearly $13 million — outdoing
Hanks’ “The Circle” — despite playing in barely 400 theaters.
Worldwide, the film earned $120 million
during its first week, making it the highest-grossing Indian box-office release
of all time. It remained in the U.S. box office’s Top 10 over the weekend,
hanging on at No. 7 and earning nearly $3.25 million, bringing its estimated
two-week tally in the U.S. and Canada to more than $16 million.
So what is “Baahubali 2”? For one thing, it
is unlike any Indian film you’ve seen.
A rousing piece of fantasy fiction set in an
ancient kingdom, its locations are extravagant. The battle sequences are
convincingly bloody. The special effects are so ambitious that, for Indian
audiences, a bullfighting scene in the original “Baahubali” released two years
ago, included the letters “C.G.I.” — computer-generated imagery — at the bottom
of the screen.
There are muscled heroes, winsome heroines
and plenty of dance numbers — all hallmarks of Bollywood. But “Baahubali” isn’t
a product of the mainstream, Hindi-language film industry based in the coastal
city of Mumbai. Instead, it was produced in the southern metropolis of
Hyderabad, which has its own massive movie industry in the Telugu language,
known, naturally, as Tollywood.
Few vernacular films have transcended their
regional origins to become hits across India, a land of 1.3 billion people,
with sharp regional language and cultural differences. When the original
“Baahubali” was released nationwide, it was dubbed into Hindi with a cast
unknown to most Indians.
Yet the franchise has managed to unite a
fragmented Indian moviegoing population at home and abroad.
“It has shown that if you make universal content
that appeals to an audience cutting across demographics, language barriers,
regions, you can achieve this kind of success,” said Akshaye Rathi, a film
industry analyst in Mumbai.
In the U.S., where Telugu films might draw
hard-core fans among the southern Indian diaspora for one or two days,
“Baahubali” has continued to draw viewers to both the original and Hindi
versions, many paying top dollar for Imax screenings.
“That shows the ‘Baahubali’ brand has crossed
over to many Indians who are not from the south,” said Gitesh Pandya, editor of
BoxOfficeGuru.com.
“And compared to typical Bollywood films,
this one is such a visual spectacle that it has to be seen on the big screen,
which plays into it.”
Most of India’s mega-blockbusters have been
sumptuous romantic comedies or one-man dramas featuring household names such as
Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, the twin titans of Bollywood. Their films have
also performed the best among the large Indian diasporas in the United States
and Persian Gulf.
But the Bollywood model of big-name stars and
feel-good stories is faltering. Indian producers, like their Hollywood
counterparts, worry about declining box-office receipts, the skyrocketing costs
of talent and increasing competition from Netflix and Amazon Video, both of
which are pushing hard into the Indian market.
Director S.S. Rajamouli’s “Baahubali”
franchise has more in common with ensemble epics like “300” or the “Lord of the
Rings” films. Crew members have said that one reason the sequel has succeeded
is that much of its reported $37-million budget — lavish by Indian standards —
was pumped into production and special effects, not stars.
Industry analysts say the film has also shown
the size of the Indian market. Most of “Baahubali 2’s” revenue in its first
week came from southern India, where the films tend to be louder and gorier —
but whose audience is often overlooked by mainstream Hindi-language directors.
“I do hope our film’s success will allow
other filmmakers to think bigger and go beyond regional boundaries,” producer
Shobu Yarlagadda wrote in an email.
The films’ visual effects aren’t as crisp as
the recent “Star Wars” installments or Marvel superhero adaptations. But they
highlight the emerging computer-animation talent at Indian studios, which are
producing a growing share of Hollywood’s digital effects.
India’s information minister, M. Venkaiah
Naidu, called the “Baahubali” films an example of Indian ingenuity and “a
trendsetter in terms of scale and grandeur.”
A week after its opening, it continued to
play to packed houses in India. Some theaters in southern India had petitioned
regulators to allow five or six screenings per day. In Mumbai, weekend showings
sold out hours before the opening credits.
Swanand Deshpande, 27, left a theater in
central Mumbai empty-handed around noon Friday when tickets for an evening
screening were snatched up. He said he’d return another day, drawn to the
films’ special effects.
“I don't think any Bollywood film matches up to
the visual effects of ‘Baahubali,’” he said.
Even Rajamouli, the director, seemed unable
to resist his own success. Although he subtitled the sequel “The Conclusion,”
he told Variety last week that he would be open to making a third installment.