'Salaar' vs. 'Dunki': How Indian Cinema's Industry Pettiness Prevented Their Own Barbenheimer Moment.

By Alberto Cox Délano | Film | December 31, 2023 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | Film | December 31, 2023 |

There are some things you need to know about the Indian Film Industry before we dive into this.

The first is the word ‘crore’ (Cr.), a unit of measure amounting to 10 million. The revenues of Indian movies are measured in crores of rupees, with 1 Cr. amounting to $120,000 US dollars as of writing this, over the last decade, that number has oscillated around $160,000 per crore. The success of any given film is, of course, contingent on its budget, level of promotion, and industry expectations, but a typical benchmark is entering one of the Centennial “Crore Clubs”: 100 Cr., 200 Cr., 300 Cr. and so on. Traditionally, there was more of a focus on the number of admissions or “footfalls”, but over the last two decades, the focus has moved to box office grosses. The tracking of revenues has never been very accurate, mostly because of industry shadiness rather than actual logistics problems.

The second thing you need to know is that Indian cinema is dominated by two main industry poles: Bollywood, the Hindi-language one and easily the most popular (for now), and the broader South Indian industries, corresponding with the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada languages, spoken in the comparatively wealthier and more developed of the Indian states. Both poles have developed more or less independently from each other, creating distinct identities, studios and star systems that only recently have begun to cross-pollinate. For reasons that are too complex to explain here, the Southern Industries have begun to eat up the dominance of Hindi, both locally and overseas, despite Hindi being spoken by more Indians than the other four languages combined. Suffice it to say, there has been a rivalry as much as there has been cooperation.

The third thing to know is that the audiences for Indian films have been growing steadily, both in theaters and via streaming. However, despite being a major source of cultural projection and soft power for India, in purely economic terms, it is still a small industry, say, compared to China. As of writing this, only 10 Indian films have grossed over $100 million dollars worldwide, not adjusting for inflation, all of which were produced over the last decade. As you might expect, this is because ticket prices in India are cheaper (around $1.5 ), purchasing power is lower and there are no more than 10,000 screens throughout a country 140 crore people. Nevertheless, Indian movies benefit from a large and very involved diaspora, usually contributing to at least a third of the theatrical receipts for major releases. This is not the case with most Chinese blockbusters over the last few years, which have struggled to match their popularity. Case in point, if you are a film nerd, you probably saw RRR last year; did you catch up with The Battle at Lake Changjin II?

With so much expansion potential going for it, you would think that the Indian film industry, as a whole, would welcome every opportunity that could project it forward. Last year it was the RRR moment. This year saw Bollywood regaining ground with three consecutive movies making over $100 million. I won’t waste time on the latter of those hits, because it’s made by a misogynistic troll, but the first two must be mentioned because they represent the triumphant return, after a five-year absence, of none other than Shah Rukh Khan. If you’re reading this, you’re probably the kind of coastal elite who is well-informed enough to know who SRK is or has even seen some of his films. SRK started the year with Pathaan, a spy-actioner which is… an uninspired, derivative copy of the Mission Impossible films. He followed it with the even more successful Jawan, another action-thriller, directed and costarring a number of very popular Tamil industry stars. It was OK, interesting concept, mid execution. And to cap off the best year of his career, he would collaborate for the first time with Rajkumar Hirani in Dunki, a dramedy about Indian migrants to the UK. Hirani might be the most consistently successful director-writer in Bollywood, having twice made the most successful Indian film at the time (2009’s 3 Idiots and 2014’s PK). To give you an idea of what a Big Deal this was, imagine if peak-90s Will Smith had made a movie with peak-90s Robert Zemeckis. That’s the closest analogy I can think of. Because one thing is certain, Bollywood and the Indian film industry are still based on stars, in front or behind the cameras.

Dunki had been announced for the Christmas weekend, which is not a mandatory National Holiday in India, but observed by many government offices. Just one little problem: During that same weekend, another major, and I mean major South Indian film would be released: Epic action-thriller Salaar. Major as it starred Telugu industry superstar Prabhas (mononyms are very common in the Indian star system), the lead of the two-part Baahubali series, the second part being the highest-grossing film within India. Salaar’s director, Prashanth Neel, is a rising star on his own, helming the Kannada-language, two-part K.G.F. film series, whose second outing grossed around 1,250 Cr. last year. Salaar is also meant to be the first part of a duology. Once again, the closest Hollywood analogy I can think of is someone like Michael B. Jordan collaborating with a Dennis Villeneuve. Or, perhaps, considering both Prabhas and Neel are relatively young, to Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig?

In short, two huge projects led by the biggest stars from each pole of India’s industries. Well, sort of. Ever since the success of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion back in 2017, Prabhas starred in a string of box office disappointments (movies with budgets of over 300 Cr.) and one colossal flop in 2023 with Adipurush, made on a record-breaking 500 Cr. budget (for reference, the announced budgets for Indian movies usually include distribution and marketing costs). Prabhas had a lot riding on the success of this movie, but it’s not like SRK was in a better position when starting production of Dunki, back in 2022. He was coming off a series of mostly successful but panned films in the latter half of the 2010s, plus a very publicized drug-arrest involving his eldest son. But with Dunki being a modestly budgeted project (120 Cr., including marketing), and with his previous vehicles having paid off in spectacular manner, he had everything to win. Salaar’s reported budget was a relatively reasonable 270 Cr. So, all things considered, and if both films were going to share the same release frame, wouldn’t it be the perfect chance for both parties to encourage a Barbenheimer moment? A friendly, meme-based rivalry between the fandoms of both stars, that could hype up demand and interest in both movies, increasing each other’s potential for success?

It wouldn’t be the case. Barbenheimer came about as spontaneously as something in Hollywood can. Though there was some fuckery between Universal and WB, in the end, they were wise enough not to intervene and let the good side of the Internet write the conversation. Meanwhile, Salaar’s release date was pushed several times do to VFX work, but ultimately, the producers decided on the Christmas weekend because of… astrology. I’m not kidding. For their part, Red Chillies Entertainment, SRK’s production house, didn’t budge. I’m more of the opinion that Hombale Films (the studio behind Salaar) was trying to play a game of chicken against Dunki, seeing it as a weaker competitor. Keep in mind that these films are very representative of their industries’ “specialties”: Salaar the epic, dark, ultra-violent actioner, starring larger-than-life men; Dunki the heartwarming dramedy, starring charismatic idols. But the playfulness of Barbenheimer arose because of that very similar contrast between both movies, why didn’t these studios and stars realize that they could have something similar in their hands?

In short: egos, a smaller number of available screens, and a growing bitterness from Bollywood as South Indian Cinema grew. But more importantly, the fans for SRK and Prabhas don’t really intersect, and one thing you need to know about the fandoms for Indian stars is that they are unhinged, and that adjective would be considered a compliment by both fanbases. They start where the craziest K-Pop fans end, but the demo is grown-ass men and women. I say this as neutrally as I can, you will not be able to get an objective opinion about either of these movies if you search for them on Twitter. It is a deluge of fan accounts praising either movie and either star as the greatest thing since Hrithik Roshan began studying dancing while attacking the rival film as the worst thing since Kangana Ranaut’s career trajectory.

The weekend results were not bad, far from it. If you’re willing to believe each studio’s figures. Dunki opened with around 200 Cr. globally over four days, while Salaar’s producers claimed a 325 Cr. opening over three days. But they succeeded despite the studios pitting them against each other. As of writing this, a week on from their debut, Dunki has held pretty well and grossed over 340 Cr., while Salaar has grossed over 550 Cr. And yet, that wasn’t enough to appease both fanbases, especially SRK’s, aghast at seeing the King of Bollywood being relegated to a measly second place at the box office. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months in the subreddit r/BollyBlindsNGossip, a community that is, for the most part, quite sensible, snarky and very critical of the industry’s many, many, many flaws. And even in this place there were fraught, obsessive discussions about Dunki vs. Salaar, tracking the reported results on an almost hourly basis, and questioning the veracity of the reported box office figures for the latter. And granted, they did have a point at times.

One of the worst-kept secrets in the Indian film industries is corporate booking, when the studios and producers, to drive up hype for a film, buy seats in bulk across a number of screenings, creating the impression that the movie is in very high demand. Now, they usually pick seats for early morning showings, cheaper and empty for obvious reasons. Now remember what I said about the Indian film industry’s smaller size overall, and consider that they would have to buy tens of thousands, perhaps up to 100,000 tickets (a unit known as a lakh). The cinema chains will certainly offer a discount price, but that is a lot of money to try and create the illusion of demand. Rumors swirl that both Red Chillies and Hombale engaged in this practice, but the latter was a little less subtle about it, claiming sold-out showings at six AM. SRK’s fans did not take it lightly, and for a short while, searching for Salaar’s on social media would net you endless posts accusing Hombale of scamming the public. There are still thousands of posts about Salaar’s alleged deception on Twitter as of writing this.

This acrimonious rivalry is, perhaps, just a small symptom of the broader economic and cultural clash between Southern and Northern India. I went and asked people in /BollyBlindsNGossip about the wasted Barbenheimer moment, and they pointed out that the problem went beyond the number of available screens in India. There’s also the problem of the ticket prices, but also that the infamous length of most major Indian tentpoles (160 minutes for Dunki, nearly three hours for Salaar) made it impossible for most people to catch both movies in a day or even a weekend. But ultimately, according to most commentators I have read, it’s ultimately because of bad blood between both industrial poles, perhaps not at the level of talent, but at the level of the executives and producers.

It all sounds even dumber and pettier when you consider both films had little competition from Hollywood itself, as the strikes altered the entire scheduling for December 2023. All they had to compete with was an Aquaman sequel everyone knew was going to flop, and perhaps Wonka in its second or third week. Had the studios coordinated and the fandoms worked together, they could’ve made a push beyond the diaspora, appealing to a global community of film nerds who were enchanted by RRR and would love to check what else the Indian film industries had to offer. In simple terms, they could’ve made even more money.

Indian Cinema, as a whole, has succeeded where even the French or Japanese have failed: Keeping Hollywood controlled, in its place, not steamrolling over their own films’ market share. This will never change, but with these idiotic rivalries, they might be missing out on their chance to win over the World.

Alberto Cox has not yet seen ‘Sholay’ or even ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’. He asks for patience.