This December, audience will be spoilt for choice as films from South compete with Bollywood

For the film industry both in India and abroad, December is considered as the golden month. It is a lucrative period because of the festive cheer and people looking for options to celebrate Christmas and New Year. Hence, the film business makes the most of this month by offering plenty of choice in terms of movies to the audience.

While Bollywood is putting its best foot forward with big banner releases, the industry down south also has an impressive lineup. In fact, along with Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero, as many four films from the South will be releasing on December 21.

Touted as biggest Kannada film, KGF featuring Yash is one of the most anticipated movies of the year. The film will be dubbed in four languages. Its Hindi version is produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani.

Despite the clash with Zero, actor Yash is confident that his film will emerge as a winner. He believes they have a bigger market in the South and Bollywood films have little share in these regions. In addition, KGF will be releasing in five languages — Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam, making the competition even tougher.

KGF’s big budget, around Rs 80 crore according to sources, is a giant leap for Kannada film industry where movies are usually made on a tight budget. On the other hand, Zero is another expensive Bollywood venture with a budget of around Rs 200 crore.

With KGF and other two big budget films — Kurukshetra and The Villain, the Kannada film industry is taking a risk. And the success of these films will also decide the future of big budget ventures in Kannada film industry.

It is a gamble also because the industry in 2017 pocketed Rs 500 crore, according to sources in the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC). And the combined total of the budget of the three movies come around Rs 200 crore. Hence, a lot is at stake for Kannada film industry.

From the Tamil side, films like Maari2, Silukkuvarpatti Singam and Adanga Maru are set to entertain the movie-goers.

Film trade analyst Ramesh Bala said in a tweet, “For Dec 21st weekend, TN Single Screens are becoming Multiplexes and are showing 3 to 4 movies in a day with one show each. 8 Tamil Movies, 2 Hollywood Movies, 2 Telugu Movies, 1 Hindi and 1 Malayalam Movie have been given shows in TN.”

That Tamil films are also a top contributor to domestic theatricals along with Bollywood is a fact. That is enough to explain the kind of dominance Tamil films have in the film market.

A 2016 KPMG report expects that "cinema in southern India, especially Tamil and Telugu, shall soon surpass Bollywood in terms of the share of box office collections by language". And it would not be a tall ask for the Tamil film industry considering the number of box office hits they produce.

As for Zero, also starring Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma in lead roles, the film has created a huge pre-release buzz. It is also eyeing to break opening day records of previous year-end releases. The highest has been by Aamir Khan-starrer Dhoom 3, which made Rs 36 crore.