In the last few years, we have seen the evolution of the Indian audience. But dubbed movies of South and Hollywood are taking an edge over Bollywood
2015
Bahubali released on 10 July 2015 and opened to a record breaking 5 crores in its hindi version. It then managed to accumulate a lifetime of 117 crores in domestic. This was the first time that a dubbed South movie had accumulated more than 50 crores. Salman Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan released a week later on 17 July 2015 and it was a superhit, but it didn't affect Bahubali's collections, even a little.
2017
After Bahubali, its sequel generated the much needed hype through the question "why Kattappa killed Bahubali?" Still then, not much was expected from this sequel.i.e maximum of 200 to 230 crores business or some even predicted that it will under perform unlike its prequel. What happened, was recorded in history of Indian cinema. Dangal, being the highest grosser of India, raked 387 crores in domestic BO. Bahubali 2: the conclusion, in its hindi dubbed version alone, raked over 513 crores at the domestic BO only. This was the most dangerous signal given to Bollywood, that something is wrong with the audience. "How can they like a Telugu movie so much? We should adapt their policy!" And! the result was something like Raabta (Magadheera) and Thugs Of Hindustan. BB2 showed the Indian audiences that, have plenty of choices available around them. BB2'S BO performance was itself a shock for Bollywood.
2018
After the teaser of 2.0, everyone was like complaining about the VFX and story, logic.etc in the movie. 2 weeks later, Thugs Of Hindustan's trailer was released and it met with a positive response. TOH was released on Diwali 2018 and it was the biggest Disaster of Bollywood in 2018. 3 weeks later, 2.0 released on 29 November 2018, a normal working weekend. It was the 2nd highest grossing movie of India after Bahubali 2. Yes, some may say that it was due to Akshay Kumar's presence, which worked for the Hindi version (190 crores domestic BO). It was the content, the connect, the entertainment, the worth for their bucks, the audience got from Shankar, which was completely missing in TOH. That was the thing, the audience want, nowadays they don't care about the starcast, director, production house .etc.
Although, it was not a clash, 2.0 clearly won over TOH.
Zero V/S KGF
Zero has to be SRK'S most hyped movie in recent years. After no hit, from last 5 years, Zero was destined to be SRK's first clean hit in 5 years, as it had all the required ingredients of being a hit. Having SRK leading the show with the support of Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif, with ace director Anand L Rai as the director, with great music and the Christmas release as the the bonus, Zero was a destined blockbuster. On my personal opinion, Zero was not as bad as it was trolled, it was just that it tried to trick the audience in the garb of giving something new, and actually giving us the same old love story with lots of VFX and some illogical space angle in it. The audience took no time time to reject the movie.
Futher, KGF released on the same day (21 December 2018) as Zero. KGF was marketed as no brainer masala entertainer, and it was again, trolled by fans for bringing the same old shit to the screen. However, Yash, a Kannada star, defeated Shahrukh Khan, a superstar of international fame. KGF was more than what it was marketed and the audience gave their response with a whopping 45 crores in the Hindi dubbed version ( it was bought by Excel Entertainment at 15 crores). While a 200 crore budgeted Zero (nearly) flopped with mere 95 crores.
CONCLUSION :
What we infer from all these examples is that South cinema is way ahead of Bollywood if we consider larger than life cinemas/big budget cinemas.
Not saying that Bollywood is bad, but it is not reinventing itself from the same concept of love story, otherwise thrillers are also in a good condition in South, like AWE (you can watch my 2nd post of 10 favourite Indian movies of 2018), while we too have Andhadhun, Stoneman Murders.etc.
South is actually far behind, if we talk about Biopics. You can take the example of NTR biopic from South and Sanju from Bollywood.
Also this year we saw the release of Simmba, the remake of Temper. And honestly, except NTR's acting(which is better than Ranveer Singh's), I found Simmba a little better than Temper, although the whole credit goes to Puri Jagannathan, Rohit Shetty was a little better at handling the canvas.
So Bollywood, you should look the audience seriously, because may be your imagination is confined, but our choice is not.
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