More franchise films, please?

The recent pan-India blockbusters could inspire an era of film series, writes Karthik Keramalu

The recent Telugu and Kannada films ‘Pushpa’, ‘RRR’, and ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ have set the box office on fire and the fans are dancing to ‘Naatu Naatu’ and doffing their hats to ‘Sulthana’. You can either love these epic dramas, or hate them, but you can’t ignore them. It’s another matter as to whether these star vehicles will stand the test of time.

The end credits of ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ reveal that Rocky (played by Yash) will make a comeback in yet another ‘KGF’ chapter. Isn’t that fantastic? Indian cinema needs more movie franchises. The main goal of the makers and distributors will be to make huge money. It’ll slowly eat into the merits of other genres. But, if you look at the bright side, it’ll bring a lot of eyeballs to the movie halls as movie series generate loyal fan bases.

Hollywood giant Martin Scorsese once famously said that the Marvel ventures are closer to theme parks. It’s a bar that cannot get any lower. Scorsese isn’t a big fan of those earth-shattering movies. I understand where his anger and frustration come from. Every other Marvel movie looks and feels the same. All the characters possess superpowers and that makes them do weird stuff on screen. The scripts seem to increasingly be based on the nature of large-scale action scenes alone rather than on the ever-changing human emotions.

In India, though, that’s not how it works. Our mythological and sci-fi dramas are standalone projects. The characters from one movie generally do not appear in another unless they’re sequels or spin-offs.

In rare cases, some filmmakers make space for their favourite characters even in films that aren’t thematically connected to each other — Dhanush’s gangster avatar, named Kokki Kumar, from ‘Pudhupettai’ (2006) re-emerged in ‘Vai Raja Vai’ (2015). Similarly, the characters Mahaali (Sunil Reddy) and Kili (Shiva Aravind), who are paper tigers from ‘Doctor’ (2021), are present in ‘Beast’ (2022), as well. Unfortunately, these Tamil films aren’t known outside their limited pockets.

When it comes to cinematic universes, it may take a lot more effort and dedication for everybody involved. Prabhas had to set aside nearly five years for the two ‘Baahubali’ films and Yash had to do the same for the twin parts of ‘KGF’. That apart, better roles need to be written for women. They cannot be ‘kept’ for entertainment (hello, Rocky, what the dirty hell was that?).

In Bollywood, the ‘Krrish’ series seems to have hit the right spot. But its success hasn’t trickled down to the south. Obviously, they don’t have to appeal to all sections of the audience. The ball rests in the filmmakers’ court, but it’d be nice to have a truckload of characters to dip into every now and then. For instance, it was good to see Chitti back with an army of mini robots (3.0) to take on his mighty rival in Shankar’s ‘2.0’ (2018), sequel to the sci-fi actioner ‘Enthiran’ (2010).

There’s strong speculation that Prashanth Neel’s upcoming action drama ‘Salaar’, which is being headlined by Prabhas, is related to the battles that have gone down in the town of KGF. I don’t know if it’s true, but if the paths of Rocky and Salaar cross, I’ll smile and clap like the pandemic is over.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based freelancer).