Lead role changes in cinema business: Bollywood makes way for South India

Hindi cinema has lost steam with its share in nationwide film revenue dropping from 44% in 2023 to 40% in 2024

A public discussion between Javed Akhtar, the lyricist and scriptwriter, and actor Aamir Khan about Bollywood last month sparked a debate about the business of Hindi movies.

 

Akhtar said Bollywood has “lost all connectivity with the audience” and South Indian movies, helmed by actors largely unknown in the North, are doing better in terms of earnings and appreciation.

 

Khan said the issue is not South versus North but business model. “Ours is the only industry that goes around requesting people, ‘Please come and consume our product. If you don’t, we’ll come and give it to you at your doorstep in eight weeks [through streaming platforms],’” he said.

 

 

Chhaava, a Bollywood film based on the life of son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, became the highest-grossing movie in the first quarter of 2025. After its theatrical release on February 14, the movie came to streaming platforms – a standard practice to earn more revenue. Bollywood needed a hit: business has not been easy in recent years.

 

Since the pandemic hit the country early 2020, a major chunk of Indian cinema’s revenue has been pocketed by films in South Indian languages (barring 2023). Hindi cinema, colloquially known as Bollywood, has lost steam with its share in nationwide film revenue dropping from 44 per cent in 2023 to 40 per cent in 2024. Moreover, roughly one-third of the Bollywood’s revenue is attributed to movies made in other languages and then dubbed in Hindi.

 

South Indian cinema dominated box office collections in 2024. Its share in film revenue increased from 43 per cent in 2023 to 48 per cent in 2024. Telugu and Tamil movies had a revenue share of 20 per cent and 15 per cent in 2024, respectively, while Malayalam and Kannada movies were at 10 per cent and 3 per cent. 

 

South India also leads in terms of the number of cinema screens. India had 9,927 movie screens in 2024 and Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana had almost 46 per cent of them. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh led the charts with 1,158 and 1,100 movie screens in 2024, followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat.    

 

 

As the number of cinema screens increased by 185 from 2023 to 2024, gross box office collections from theatres declined by 6.34 per cent (Rs 12,600 crore to Rs 11,800 crore). Leave out the exceptional years of 2020 and 2021 when curbs were imposed to contain the pandemic, audience footfall in theatres has consistently declined. Footfall roughly halved from 1.56 billion in 2018 to 0.85 billion in 2024, partly due to a rise in average ticket prices and competition from streaming.