Malayalam Superhit, Disaster in Telugu and Hindi

Seeing the success of Malayalam films on OTT platforms, some people have been following the formula of remaking old Malayalam films, hoping they would work. In this process, one such Malayalam film was remade into Telugu, and it already ended in failure. Without learning from that, the Hindi audience also tried the same thing and ended up with a disaster!

A few years ago, a cop thriller came out in Malayalam. It was called Mumbai Police. In 2013, Prithviraj played the lead role in this film. It wasn’t exactly a high-range investigative thriller, but it did have its unique appeal. The story is about a police officer who makes progress in a case, but after an accident, he forgets everything about it. The case, which was almost solved, slips from his memory, and he has to investigate all over again to figure out what happened. The movie had some interesting twists, and at that time, the climax felt different, which made it a hit among the Malayalam audience!

At that point, Prithviraj’s image was very limited. Such experimental roles worked for Malayalam heroes but may not have been suitable for others. This was proven in Telugu a few years ago. The Malayalam Mumbai Police was remade into Telugu as Hunt with Sudheer Babu. The film didn’t even make a significant impact, and it ended up as a disaster. While the Malayalam version was made with a budget of 5 crores and became a hit at that level, the Telugu version, with a budget of 14 crores, couldn’t even recover 2 crores from its theatrical release.

The Hindi remake of the movie also failed to perform well. These days, a Bollywood film starring Shahid Kapoor usually has a budget of at least 100 crores, but this film couldn’t even reach half of that amount. The Hindi version was titled Deva and was also directed by the same Malayalam director. However, it turned out to be a disaster at the box office! Now, the film is set to release on OTT, joining the Malayalam and Telugu versions which are already available.

This proves that when it comes to Malayalam films, they need to be watched in their original form. Remakes rarely achieve success at the box office. Another film that proves this point is the remake of Drishyam. Even though the Telugu version of Drishyam was praised, by the third day of its release, there were barely any people left in the theaters! The Hindi version of Drishyam also failed to achieve significant commercial success in its first week. As for the sequels of Drishyam, they were also remade for OTT platforms instead of traditional theatrical releases.