Actor Aadi declined an offer to act in a bilingual film. When asked why, he said, “These films haven’t fared too well, so I dropped the idea. I plan to focus on Telugu films which can perhaps later be dubbed into Tamil.” The actor lists a few recent bilingual movies, that had a good starcast, yet failed at the BO.
Mahesh Babu, last year, worked on a Tamil-Telugu bilingual film, Spyder. The actor felt the subject would interest the Tamil and Telugu audience. But the film didn’t do well in either language. Every scene in Spyder was shot twice, once in Telugu and then in Tamil, to get the lip-sync right. Yet, the high-budget film didn’t appeal to anyone.
Allu Sirish’s debut film Gouravam directed by Radha Mohan was also a bilingual project — based on honour killings — turned out to be a dud. “We should concentrate more on Telugu. Instead we work hard on both the languages and in the end, we can’t justify either,” said Allu Sirish. He says it’s better to shoot the film in the original language first and then maybe dub the scenes in the other language or simply re-shoot only key scenes, if it is to be released in another language.
A still from Gouravam
Nani, a successful young actor in Tollywood, says, “I consciously decided not to do bilingual films as it’s very difficult to concentrate on both the languages.”
All his recent Telugu films have been hits. His earlier bilingual Telugu-Tamil film Jenda Pai Kapiraju, did not do well. Nani also worked on a Tamil film Veppam which was later dubbed into Telugu. The film flopped in both languages.
The success of a film depends on the audience and their culture. “When the tastes and nativity of the audience is completely different, it’s difficult to enthral them both,” says Aadi. He is currently working on two Telugu films — one with director Sai Kiran Adivi is almost complete. “If the film is a success then we can dub it in Tamil,” he says.
Bilingual films shoot up production costs. It’s simpler and cost effective to dub and release it in another language, which Tamil filmmakers are doing at present, says Allu Sirish.
Another young actor, Sharwanand tried giving bilingual films a shot and the film hasn’t released yet. Ram Charan too tried his hand in a bilingual — Zanjeer in Hindi and Toofan in Telugu. The film bombed in both languages. Even actresses like Anushka and Trisha have done a few bilingual films but they haven’t done too well in at the box-office.
