THE Allu Arjun-starrer Pushpa: The Rule has finally released in cinemas, and it is no less than a festival at the movies as the film is eyeing an opening day business of more than Rs 275 crores worldwide. The movie has opened to great reviews from critics, who finally seem to have understood that mass entertainers require a different barometer to judge their merits compared to an arthouse or an indie film. However, as the film pushes out the re-release of Christopher Nolan’s epic time-travel drama Interstellar, it’s interesting to unravel what has made the film such a huge phenomenon for the movie-goers. Pushpa: The Rule is the sequel to the 2021 box-office juggernaut Pushpa: The Rise and picks up from where its predecessor left. It sees the Telugu superstar Allu Arjun reprising his titular role. The first part of the franchise was released on December 17, 2021, a day after Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: NoWay Home. Prior to its release, Pushpa: The Rise just had a cold poster launch as the Indian cinema was struggling to get back on track with its wobbly feet owing to months of lockdown and slowing down of the economy following the devastating second wave of Covid-19. However, the civil restrictions were eventually eased, and by October 2021, theatres were reopened. The response from the audience remained lacklustre.

 

November 4, 2021, things looked better for Bollywood with the release of the Akshay Kumar-starrer Sooryavanshi, a first big ticket release in cinemas after lifting of civil restrictions. However, the film, which is a part of Rohit Shetty’s cop universe, didn’t impress the movie-goers much, and the theatre chains struggled with the content. Come December 16, 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home started its theatrical expedition in India, once again things looked hunky dory for the cinema owners afterall, who doesn’t like a ‘Spider-Man’ movie? However, something was brewing in the undercurrents. A day later Pushpa:The Rise was released. It quickly climbed up the box-office ladder, and in no time, it surpassed the collections of a legacy title like Spider-Man: No Way Home. A week later, the Ranveer Singh-starrer 83, which was a much hyped released of its time, was released in cinemas. The film failed to draw the audience.On the same day, the third wave of Covid-19 emerged, plunging the country into precautionary measures once again. Theatres were again shut in Delhi and NCR which account for 8% of total film revenues in India. However, this didn’t stop Pushpa: The Rise, and frankly it stood no chance because in the next few days, Pushpa proved that come what may, “Pushpa jhukega nahi saala!”. The Telugu movie, the second biggest hit from the Telugu market after the Baahubali franchise, allowed the roots of the pan-India film movement to dig deeper into the different markets of the country. The film went on to stay for nearly 2 months in theatres, and emerged as a blockbuster netting in Rs 267.55 crores in India as per the industry tracker Sacnilk.

 

A business of Rs 267.55 crores in India at a time when 8% of revenue stream was cut-off, and theatres across the country weren’t fully opened, speaks of the film’s impact and its cultural significance in the country. The industry and the critics who rang a death knell on the business of cinemas in a new world order of the post-pandemic era, were zapped at the box-office performance of Pushpa: The Rise. Several analysts suggested that Allu Arjun silently built his audience in the Hindi markets over the years owing to the Hindi dub of his satellite releases, an undercurrent that the industry and the market failed to gauge because of its outdated models. What followed was re-calibration of models, the market, and the film production strategies.

 

The film made Allu Arjun a panIndia star in the true sense of the word, and also laid a solid ground for the S. S. Rajamouli directorial RRR which further cemented the pan-India market prowess of the director, and went on to become a global rage, earning a performance at the Oscars stage. The industry sensed that “pan-India” is a cool new term to lure the audience into the theatres, and profit off by releasing the films in multiple markets by getting the stars from south cinema onboard in order to reap the benefits in new markets. The trend of projecting pan-India films continued until the audience made it clear that not everything marketed as pan-India would be lapped up by movie-goers. With things looking good for Pushpa: The Rule considering it’s now a legacy title, and was the most awaited over other legacy titles like Singham Again and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, it will be interesting to see how the film fares on the box-office, and what new avenues it opens for the Indian film market.