Why Shah Rukh Khan's 'Pathaan' cannot be considered a pan-India hit film

Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone's 'Pathaan' has done over Rs 50 crore from South Indian box office.

Mumbai, Feb 06: Bollywood is celebrating the success of 'Pathaan' as it is the first hit of Shah Rukh Khan in close to a decade.

Although the makers have not officially announced the collection of the movie, the PRs and social media influencers have been giving daily updates about the movie. According to them, the movie has minted over Rs 400 crore in India.

Despite this success, 'Pathaan' cannot be considered as a 'pan-India' hit movie as Shah Rukh Khan-starrer has not done well only in its traditional Hindi belts. The highest revenue has come from the Mumbai circuit where it has raked in Rs 111.56 crore, according to Bollywood Hungama, The combined collection of the film in Punjab and C. P. Berar circuit (Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Southern and Eastern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. (Comprises areas that formed the erstwhile Central Provinces and Berar) is Rs 101.63 crore.

Notably, it has managed to earn Rs 20.69 crore in the Nizam and Andhra Pradesh, Rs 21.58 crore from Mysuru region and Rs 9.81 crore from Tamil Nadu along and Kerala. From South India, it has raked in Rs 52.08 crore. However, the South Indian versions of 'Pathaan' has done negligible business.

The movie was simultaneously released in Telugu and Tamil versions. In fact, the makers roped in big South stars like Vijay and Ram Charan to launch the trailers of the Tamil and Telugu versions, but it did not make much impact on the South viewers as the makers did not take effort to promote the movie.

As a result, 'Pathaan' failed to become a pan-India hit film. Ideally, the makers should have taken cue from 'RRR', 'KGF' and 'Kantara' teams when it comes to promoting movies. Cutting across barriers, the likes of SS Rajamouli, Yash and Rishab Shetty went to each state, spoke about their movies, gave interviews for newspapers, TV channels and YouTube channels which helped them to reach out to the large section of audience of different languages and cultures.

Leaving aside the business part, those movies got the love and appreciation from every nook and corner of the country. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Bengal to Bengaluru, cine-goers hailed the films like 'Kantara' and 'RRR', thereby helping them to get pan-India acceptance.

The filmmakers in Hindi should learn the lessons from the success of these movies as the four states together have the potential to give over Rs 500 crore business. Today, people are open for watching content from any language and language is not barrier at all. So why not walk that extra mile to get pan-India acceptance?