Prabhas Movie South

[Alfie Overacre]

In2006, Deepika Padukone made her debut in a Kannada film called Aishwarya in which she acted with Upendra. Her very next film, however, was the Bollywood biggie Om Shanti Om with Shah Rukh Khan. Though Aishwarya was also a big hit, Deepika, who grew up in Bengaluru, did not do any south film after that for a long time.

Until now. The announcement that Deepika, currently among the highest paid women actors in the country, will be starring opposite Prabhas in their upcoming multilingual film, has sent fans into a tizzy. The film will be directed by Nag Ashwin who gave us the blockbuster Mahanati with Keerthy Suresh in the lead. The producer is Vyjayanthi Movies, which has in the past made several iconic Telugu films. Although the Deepika-Prabhas film will also release in Hindi, this is essentially a south Indian project.

An exception to this rule has been Taapsee Pannu, who has continued to sign south Indian films despite making it big in the Hindi film industry. The actor has, in fact, gone on record to say that she wants to break the assumption that a Hindi star will not do south films after tasting success in Bollywood.

Since then, many more big budget south films have been released or announced, including Rajamouli's next RRR (Roudram Ranam Rudhiram), a Telugu period drama with Ram Charan and Junior NTR. Bollywood star Alia Bhatt will be making her debut in the south Indian industries with this film. The film will also star Ajay Devgn.

Prabhas's next after Baahubali, Saaho, had Shraddha Kapoor playing the female lead. Although the film received mostly negative reviews, it released to massive hype and enjoyed a wide opening. The film reportedly released in about 6,000 screens worldwide. For a comparison, Zoya Akhtar's Gully Boy, which also released in 2019, opened in about 4,000 screens worldwide. The film had Bollywood A-listers Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in the lead.

Kangana Ranaut, who did two south films early in her career (Dhaam Dhoom and Ek Niranjan), is making a comeback with Thalaivi, in which she will be acting as late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. Aishwarya Rai has given the nod for Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan, which has a huge starcast, and will start filming in 2021.

Shankar's 2.0 even saw Akshay Kumar, one of the leading male stars in the Hindi industry, play the antagonist opposite Rajinikanth in 2018. While there's nothing new about smaller male stars from the Hindi industry shifting to supporting or negative roles in the southern industries, Akshay's move is uncommon. KGF 2 meanwhile will have Sanjay Dutt playing the antagonist.

With multiplexes playing films with subtitles, dubbed films and OTT platforms bridging the language gap and familiarising audiences with stars from different industries, actors have nothing to lose by acting in various languages if their salary requirements are also being met.

Not many details are known about the new Nag Ashwin project, but with two big stars in the cast who are known for their grandeur-filled films like Baahubali, Bajirao Mastani and Padmaavat, the theme is unlikely to be anything ordinary.

Prabhas has Radhe Shyam on the cards apart from the Nag Ashwin film while Deepika has 83. Both stars are highly selective and that has made the announcement all the more exciting for fans. For Prabhas, the film will once again underline his status as a pan-Indian star while for Deepika, it is a return to a market that she has not explored much.

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