With the reopening of cinemas in most states of India, Asian movie lovers will witness the return of the much anticipated movie releases on the big screen, that were previously pushed back due to the ongoing pandemic.
Cinema theatres in India and overseas markets popular for Indian movie releases, are anticipating heavy footfall during the Diwali weekend, which falls on 4 November 2021, for the line-up includes both regional and big-ticket titles.
From Akshay Kumar’s Sooryavanshi, Rajinikanth’s Tamil movie Annaatthe and more, here is a comprehensive list of Asian movie releases over the remainder of 2021:
Star (Malayalam)
Synopsis: Prithviraj plays Dr Derrick who tries to unearth the mystery in the story. The mystery of star – the Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation.
Release Date: 28 October 2021
Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Joju George and Sheelu Abraham
Sooryavanshi (Hindi)
Synopsis: Sooryavanshi traces the acts and serious antics of DCP Veer Sooryavanshi, the chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad in India.
Release Date: 4 November 2021
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Ajay Devgn and Ranveer Singh
Annaatthe (Tamil)
Synopsis: Directed by Siruthai Siva, Annaatthe is a rural action-entertainer with Rajinikanth playing the role of a village headman.
Release Date: 4 November 2021
Cast: Rajinikanth, Nayanthara, Prakash Raj and Keerthy Suresh
Bunty Aur Babli 2 (Hindi)
Synopsis: Bunty and Babli are forced out of retirement after a spate of robberies with their trademark sigil start appearing across India.
Release Date: 18 November 2021
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerji and Pankaj Tripathi
Satyameva Jayate 2 (Hindi)
Synopsis: Revolves around the fight against injustice and misuse of power. From police and politicians to industrialists and a common man, the film will explore corruption in all spheres.
Release Date: 25 November 2021
Cast: John Abraham, Divya Khosla Kumar and Anup Soni
Maanaadu (Tamil)
Synopsis: On the day of a public conference by the state’s Chief Minister, his bodyguard and a police officer are stuck in a time loop.
Release Date: 25 November 2021
Cast: T.R. Silambarasan, Kalyani Priyadarshan and S.J. Suryah
83 (Hindi)
Synopsis: The story of India’s incredible cricket World Cup victory in 1983. The World Cup that taught India to win.
Release Date: 23 November 2021
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone and Tahir Raj Bhasin
Pushpa: The Rise (Telugu)
Synopsis: Based on the smuggling of red sandal trees in Seshachalam forest|
Release Date: 23 December 2021
Cast: Allu Arjun, Fahadh Faasil and Rashmika Mandanna
Jersey (Hindi)
Synopsis: The about a thirty six year old cricketer who stopped his cricketing career ten years ago, and now aiming to return to the Indian Cricket team to realize his son’s dream and to prove his ability
Release Date: 30 December 2021
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Mrunal Thakur and Palak Singh
*Movie release dates are subject to change
Advertisers… here’s your chance to target Asian audiences in the lead up to Diwali and over the rest of Q4 2021. Mark your calendars and contact us to plan your cinema advertising campaigns alongside these Asian movie releases.
Sources: IMDB and VOX Cinemas movie release schedule
Laxmii – the first big-budget Bollywood Blockbuster to release post COVID-19 lockdown!
The Akshay Kumar starring film that everyone has been waiting for – Laxmii, will finally hit cinemas in the UAE on Monday, 9th November 2020. The film – a remake of Tamil blockbuster Muni 2: Kanchana, is directed by Raghava Lawrence and will also feature stars such as Kiara Advani, Tusshar Kapoor, Sharad Kelkar and Ashwini Kalsekar.
The Horror comedy film revolves around Akshay Kumar who plays a dual role: Asif – a man who doesn’t believe in ghosts, and Laxmii – a powerful and radiant transgender ghost seeking revenge.
Fox Star Studios, the leading production house confirmed that the movie will simultaneously have a theatrical release in Australia, New Zealand and UAE, and will release on their OTT platform – Disney+ Hotstar for audiences in India.
Here’s everything we know about Laxmii prior to its release:
Director:
Raghava Lawrence – mainly known for Telugu and Tamil movies, originally embarked on the idea to direct Muni 2: Kanchana when a trust run by him was approached by a group of transgenders. Upon hearing their story, he decided to take the social message to a much wider audience by portraying it on the big screen, and based on its success, moved on to remake the film with title name Laxmii, extending it to Hindi audiences.
Movie Title Change:
The film was originally titled Laxmmi Bomb up until 29th October 2020, but changed to Laxmii with a view to respect religious sentiments of a group of protestors in India. This is not the first-time intolerance in India has won though, for back in 2018, the epic period drama film Padmavati was changed to Padmaavat.
Trailer Success:
When the trailer dropped on 9th October 2020, it became the most viewed movie trailer in India in just 24 hours with 70 million views (YouTube + other social media platforms).
Song Feature on the Burj Khalifa:
UAE has always been a popular destination with directors and producers of both Hollywood and Bollywood. From natural and man-made landscapes; which are vast and varied, flame hued deserts, to futuristic skylines and iconic landmarks, UAE has been featured as the backdrop in numerous films that released in 2020 and from back in the past.
Popular films featuring UAE include Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Fast & Furious 7 (2015) and most recently Jackie Chan’s action movie Vanguard (2020) and Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi/adventure Dune (set to release in 2021).
Certain scenes of Laxmii too were filmed in the emirate of Dubai, which include the desert and Dubai Marina. The film also dedicates a song to the iconic Burj Khalifa – a trendy single that has grabbed eyeballs across the internet and is expected to be one of the biggest Bollywood party anthems of the year.
Advertisers…. here’s an opportunity to target Asian audiences in the lead up to Diwali. We’ve also recently launched a ‘Special Offer’ for advertising alongside this movie. Contract a member of our sales team for more information on the Laxmii ‘Special Offer’.
Sources: IndiaTV News, Times of India, Condé Nast Traveller, The Hindu, The National and Gulf News
Indian language movies have come a long way over the last few years!
From their initial standard three hour long flicks featuring action-packed drama, tears, catchy and sing-along songs, extravagant dancing and colourful traditional costumes – being produced solely for domestic consumption, to having varied time lengths dictated by their content, and witnessed across the globe in countries such as United States, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, China, Russia, Turkey – in either their original form with subtitles or dubbed versions of its original form.
Movies from India are no longer restricted to Bollywood which produces movies solely in the national language (Hindi). India, in line with the varied languages and dialects in the country, is also home to other powerhouse movie industries such as:
Bollywood – Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry, India
Pollywood – Punjabi language film industry in India and Pakistan
Bhojiwood – Film industry of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India in Bhojpuri language
Chhollywood – Chhattisgarhi language film industry based in Chhattisgarh, India
Tollywood – Bengali film industry in West Bengal, India/Telugu film industry in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
Kollywood – Tamil language film industry, based in Chennai, India./Nepal’s film industry
Mollywood – Malayalam film industry in Kerala, India
Sandalwood – Kannada language film industry in Karnataka, India.
Jollywood – Assamese language film industry in Guwahati, Assam
Ollywood – Film industry of Orissa, India in Oriya language
The Indian-film industry also comprises of globally recognized actors and actresses who are passionately dedicated to provide the best of their skills and talent to the industry:
Bollywood
Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif
Kollywood
Rajinikanth, Vijay, Ajith Kumar and Nayanthara
Tollywood
Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Anushka Shetty and Rakul Preet Singh
As a result of these film stars having huge fan-followings from around the world, they too have helped attract large audiences to watch Indian movie releases in cinema.
A recent report by PWC indicates that Bollywood is set to become the third largest cinema market in the world.
In recent years, there have been numerous Indian language movies that have done relatively well at the worldwide box office:
Bollywood movies easily make up the second largest watched language in the UAE – with some blockbusters raking in 300,000 plus admissions. Other Indian language movies – which include Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, have also gained massive popularity and acceptance in accordance with Hindi movies.
Below is analysis conducted by Motivate Val Morgan on Indian language movie releases across the Middle East in 2018:
In October 2019, Motivate Val Morgan – in collaboration with Murdoch University Dubai, also conducted cinema research in the UAE in the form of questionnaires and video interviews at VOX Cinemas – City Centre Deira and Burjuman (two prominent locations for Asian movie audiences).
The objective of this research project was to understand cinemagoing habits of Asian audiences and measure the effectiveness of cinema advertising alongside Indian language movies..
As the research above indicates:
Here’s a line-up of Indian language movies scheduled to release over the months ahead:
December 2019
Pati Patni Aur Woh (Hindi)
Panipat (Hindi)
Mardaani 2 (Hindi)
Good Newwz (Hindi)
Mamangam (Malayalam)
January 2020
Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior (Hindi)
Darbar (Tamil)
Ala Vaikunthapurramloo (Telugu)
Sarileru Neekevvaru (Telugu)
Street Dancer 3D (Hindi)
Don’t miss out on targeting large Asian movie loving audiences. Contact us for cinema advertising opportunities alongside the movies mentioned above!
Sources: Wikipedia, WARC, MVM Analysis, MVM Research and IMDb
2.0 – the sequel to Enthiran (2010), will unite the best of talent from Kollywood and Bollywood – Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar. The movie is set to release in cinemas (worldwide) on 29th November and will undoubtedly be one of the biggest Indian language movie releases of 2018.
Trivia:
Both Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar have a devoted fan base across the region, with their movies being well received.
Here’s a look at movie successes starring Rajinikanth:
Kaala (2018)
Kaala was released (worldwide) on 7th June 2018 in three languages – Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. In the UAE, the film earned AED 3,403,631.
Kabali (2016)
There was a different kind of hysteria among Rajinikanth fans as Kabali was the first movie in which the action hero played a role of his own age.
In the GCC, over 200 theatres (including 100 screens in the UAE) screened the movie, and advance online bookings received overwhelming responses with many sessions running house full. According to a local distributor, there were approximately 151,000 tickets sold for in the first two days of release across the UAE.
The film had earned US$11.20 million in its first four-day weekend overseas, breaking the record previously held by Dhoom 3 (US$10.32 million) as the highest-grossing first weekend for an Indian film in overseas markets. According to International Business Times in May 2017, the film’s final overseas gross was US$15.65 million.
Enthiran (2010)
As of January 2018, Enthiran is the fourth-highest-grossing South Indian film of all time after S. S. Rajamouli’s two-part historical fiction films Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017) and Baahubali: The Beginning (2015).
According to a February 2015 report by Hindustan Times, the film has grossed approximately US$34.8 million (worldwide) in its lifetime.
Below are UAE statistics for movies featuring Akshay Kumar:
Brothers (2015) – screened for 4 weeks and did approximately 130,500 admissions
Rustom and Airlift (2016) grossed a total of AED 6,565,596 and 4,408,681 respectively
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017) – screened for 3 weeks and did approximately 103,200 admissions
Jolly LLB 2 (2017) – screened for 5 weeks and did approximately 114,000 admissions
Padman (2018) – grossed a total of AED 3,162,845
Based on the success of previous Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar movies (as indicated above) and the fact that Indian language movie fans (in this region) are not restricted to the expat population from the subcontinent, 2.0 is guaranteed to usher in large cinema audiences.
Don’t miss out on advertising alongside one of the biggest Indian language movies of 2018.
Contact a member of our sales team for more information on cinema advertising opportunities across the GCC.
Sources: YouTube, First Post, Wikipedia, The National and Gulf News
