Prasanth Varma’s Hanu-Man became one of the biggest hits of 2024 and now the film is heading to a Japan release in October. But that’s not all, the makers are planning a special re-release of the Teja Sajja starrer in India too. Talking to us, the director reveals, “We have converted Hanu-Man into 3D now, and the international versions will be released in 3D. We are planning to re-release the film in 3D in selected screens in India around the same time as the Japanese release.”
Discussing how Japan is turning to be a lucrative market for South films following the success of RRR (2022) and Kalki 2898 AD there, he says, “Over time, the North has had very heavy influence of the West. They have started imitating West in the last decade as compared to the South. The South Indian sensibilities are still very close to Japan and Korea in terms of emotions, and if your film has potential, the Japanese audience is embracing it.”
Prasanth adds that they aren’t dubbing the film in Japanese but will only release it with Japanese subtitles. “We wanted to dub it in other languages, but apparently these days, people have got accustomed to watching films in their original language with subtitles in their own language. They don’t want to watch the dubbed versions. Initially, when we released on January 12, we did a basic release in Japan for the Telugu audience there. Now, it’s going to be bigger and even the distributors are promoting it really well there,” he shares.
Hanu-Man emerged a massive box office success in a year that has been quite challenging for Indian films at the ticket counters. Reflecting on the dismal year financially until now, Prasanth says, “People today are going to theatres only if the film is good. Ticket pricing plays a major role now as earlier, going to the cinemas didn’t use to be that expensive. But now, the ticket prices are so high. One of the main reasons for Hanu-Man working is because we kept the ticket prices very low. The audience didn’t feel that they’d have to spend a fortune to see the film. The number of people who saw Hanu-Man is actually higher than many big films and that’s why we have been able to have the box-office numbers we got even at low ticket prices.”
{{/usCountry}}Hanu-Man emerged a massive box office success in a year that has been quite challenging for Indian films at the ticket counters. Reflecting on the dismal year financially until now, Prasanth says, “People today are going to theatres only if the film is good. Ticket pricing plays a major role now as earlier, going to the cinemas didn’t use to be that expensive. But now, the ticket prices are so high. One of the main reasons for Hanu-Man working is because we kept the ticket prices very low. The audience didn’t feel that they’d have to spend a fortune to see the film. The number of people who saw Hanu-Man is actually higher than many big films and that’s why we have been able to have the box-office numbers we got even at low ticket prices.”
{{/usCountry}}According to Prasanth, what might work at the box office is, “going local”. “Don’t try to make films like Hollywood, try telling your stories. If you look at films like Kantara, even the international audience is embracing them because that’s a story even they didn’t know. But if you are trying to make a spy film and all that, Hollywood has already made better films than us. So, I’d suggest finding stories that are not there in other countries. Make films with stories that your grandma told you because that works. If you make a film based on some other film, the audience has already seen better stuff,” he concludes.