Yash Raj Films waiting for right content to explore south market

Yash Raj Films made its southern debut with the remake of "Band Baaja Baaraat", which turned out to be a disaster. The failure hasn't stopped the prestigious banner from exploring new opportunities in the south.

"Band Baaja Baaraat" was remade in Tamil and Telugu as "Aaha Kalyanam".

"The failure certainly doesn't stop us from doing anything in the future if there's an opportunity. The only reason we've not been able to explore because we need to have the right content," Ashish Singh, film producer, Yash Raj Films, told IANS on the sidelines of ongoing Indywood Film Market here.

"It's not just business for us to have a big south superstar work in one of the remakes of our Bollywood blockbusters. Our priority has always been good content. We thought the remake of 'Band Baaja Baaraat' would work but it didn't unfortunately," he said.

For the time being, the banner will concentrate on dubbing all their big releases as there's a tremendous market for dubbed films.

"We have our regional offices in the south. We're always on the lookout for good content. I think it's just a matter of time before we enter the south market," he added.

Admitting that there's potential in the southern market, Singh said, "There can't be a better example than 'Baahubali'. The content aside, the success of this film has shown us the strength of the market and how much revenue can be generated from it".

The banner's hit film this year "Dum Laga Ke Haisha" was to be remade in Tamil and Telugu but the plan didn't materialize.

"There were plans to remake the film. The parties who approached us initially didn't come back," he said.

(Haricharan Pudipeddi is in Kochi at the invitation of the All Lights India International Film Festival organisers. He can be contacted at haricharan.p@ians.in)