Bollywood vs Tollywood – does tollywood overtake bollywood? 5 reasons and facts shocking facts
Bollywood vs Tollywood: Generally, Tollywood and Bollywood come from different languages and different parts of the country. Bollywood makes movies mostly in Hindi language. So, Bollywood has a huge audience base, while Tollywood is limited to Telugu language only. But since 2015, Tollywood has grown like anything. Tollywood is trying to release movies in Hindi language also, so that its fan base has increased enormously. There are so many pan Indian films came from Tollywood in recent times.
If anyone speaks about Indian cinema, immediately they recall Shah Rukh Khan and Amir Khan. Even our Indian movies have been recognised internationally because of these stars in Bollywood. There was not much recognition for the movies other than Bollywood in past years. If anyone speaks about Indian cinema, it will be Bollywood. This was the story before the year 2015.
In 2015, Mr. Rajamouli directed the film Bahubali – The Beginning. It is from Tollywood only. And guess what, in next 7 years from Bahubali – The beginning, Tollywood became India’s No.1 film industry. Yes, you read it right. In 2022, Tollywood overtook all other industries including Bollywood also and became No.1 in collections.
In 2022, a report was made by Consultancy Ormax Media, in this report, it was estimated that the Telugu language film industry, known as Tollywood, earned about 212 million dollars in 2021, eclipsing the 197 million dollars made by Bollywood, which has long been based in India’s business center, Mumbai.
In fact, no other industry than Bollywood has original audience. Original audience means language-based audience. In India, Hindi is the largest speaking language, entire north population is using Hindi as their language. So, obviously Bollywood has huge original audience. But if we compare Tollywood and Bollywood, Tollywood has one tenth of original audience of Bollywood.
Now, Tollywood movies are on top of the table in India, because of the content that Tollywood is providing.
Budget
In 2010, Deccan Herald published a report, in that, it mentioned, the second largest film industry after Bollywood, the Telugu film industry or Tollywood as it has been dubbed, is facing crisis that has been partly of its own making and partly by others. Meaning, Tollywood producers were not able to make movies because of the flop movies and the actors were taking huge remuneration.
Highest Budget movie from Bollywood is Prabhas’ Adipurush movie with 500 released in 2023.
Content
After 14 years, the highest budget movie Kalki 2898AD around 600 crores is from Tollywood. From then and now, what has been changing, nothing but stories and movie making.
If the story is good, Tollywood is not hesitating to take risk. Basically, Bollywood is like face of the Indian cinema, there are so many good films from Bollywood like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Dangal etc.
Collections
India’s famous actor Mr. Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan collected around 858.8 crores worldwide, Indian Superstar Mr. Amirkhan’s Dangal collected 1924.7 crores worldwide, highest grosser from India. Secret superstar collected 830.8 crores, PK movie collected 742.3 crores.
But India’s first 200 crores budget movie is Bahubali – The Beginning is from Tollywood. And India’s first 500 crore budget movie RRR is from Tollywood. And India’s highest budget movie is Kalki 2898AD is also from Tollywood.
Movie Making
Not all Movies, but in some Bollywood movies, they use western culture. In south films mostly we see Indian culture and traditions. And also, south films dominate in number of films made on gods.
In Bollywood or in other film industries, they do prerelease promotions. But in Tollywood, they do post release promotions. May be this is also one of the reasons to be on top of the other Indian film industries.
Conclusion
Not Bollywood, not Tollywood, not any other film industry, end of the day we all are Indians. We should respect every Indian movie and make them blockbusters. Indian movies are getting huge recognition by foreign countries also. We should feel proud to have movies and stars like this.