Netizens recently took to Twitter and demanded the Kannada version of Hobbs & Shaw, the ninth Hollywood film from the Fast and Furious franchise, slated to hit screens worldwide in August. 

This follows a similar campaign for a Kannada version in 2017 before the release of the eighth film in the franchise.

The trailer of Hobbs &Shaw’s Kannada version was released on YouTube last week. 

In more than 3,000 tweets, local Twitterati said it was their right to watch the film’s dubbed version in Kannada, expressing their disappointment over the ban on the dubbing culture that denied them the right to watch world television in their native language. 

Ban on dubbing

In the early 1960s, the Kannada film industry brought on an internal ban over the dubbing of other language movies in Kannada, calling them a threat to the local culture, actors and technicians.

Ever since the High Court of Karnataka and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) ruled that there could not be any restrictions on the screening of other language films dubbed in Kannada, calls for dubbing films and television programmes into the language have been steadily growing.

While a significant number of movies had been dubbed into Kannada after the order, the campaign for the dubbed version hits fever pitch ahead of a big banner movie.