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Photo: Twitter/Rashmika VijayDeverakonda
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Two big Tollywood stars Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna made their debut in Bollywood this year. Both these stars already had a good following across India thanks to their respective regional blockbuster movies like Arjuna Reddy and Pushpa: The Rise respectively.
However, for them making an official Bollywood debut was a big thing. Nevertheless, expectations from Vijay’s Liger and Rashmika’s Goodbye were very high. Unfortunately, both movies tanked at the box office.
Was Vijay’s overconfident attitude the reason behind this failure?
As a part of the multiple promotional events and press conferences for Liger which is quite a norm these days, Vijay Deverakonda went to different cities and faced questions from the media. Many people found his attitude and responses overconfident.
The trend #boycottLiger was quite a movement on social media and instead of staying mum or appealing to the audience to watch it and then decide, Vijay tweeted, “Kaun rokega dekh lenge (we’ll see who can stop us).”
After the movie flopped badly, the leading distributor from Mumbai Manoj Desai slammed Vijay’s attitude. However, later on, Vijay met him and asked for forgiveness.
It is quite possible that this negativity around the Karan Johar-produced movie did affect the perspective of the audience, but no one expected Liger to perform so badly.
Earlier there were rumours that Vijay and Karan had signed a 100-crore deal for three movies. Now, it seems that plans have been put on hold similar to another of his movie to be directed by Puri Jagannadh who also helmed Liger. While he continues to be in demand in the Tollywood film industry and is currently busy with multiple projects, for the present his aspirations to become a big Bollywood star have been stumped.
Rashmika’s Goodbye also could not get a good response.
Rashmika has done some wonderful movies with big stars in the South and has an immense following on social media. She is considered to be the next big star in Bollywood. However, Goodbye failed to give a boost to such claims and proved that Rashmika cannot deliver a hit on her own and needs a big star to make her movies a success.
Takeaways for Southern stars with Bollywood aspirations
From KGFs Yash, and Pushpa's Allu Arjun to RRR's Ram Charan and Jr. NTR, many Southern stars have tasted pan-India success. However, the recent examples of Rashmika and Vijay or even Baahubali fame Prabhas indicate that Bollywood accepts movies of only those regional actors that have a good storyline, and concept, and a big director like SS Rajamouli to direct.
So, any Southern star who is aspiring for Bollywood stardom should keep these things in mind.
Secondly, the Hindi film industry although over the years has opened to a few Southern film stars like Rajneekant, Nagarjuna, Kamal Haasan, or Chiranjeevi, these stars could not enjoy the same stardom in Bollywood as in the South. So, there’s a lot for such Southern stars to learn from the recent examples of Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda.
More than that the massive debacle of Prabhas-led Saaho and Radhe Shyam and the criticism that he faced for the Adipurush teaser should serve as a big learning lesson for all such South stars.
Of all, one must keep in mind that the advent of OTT has increased the level of demand for good content among fans.
