Before the start of this year there was a trend in Malayalam cinema industry that big budget Tamil films dominated the proceedings here. Big Tamil films come here and take away great number of screens for its release and then plunder our box office collections as well. People were also behind such films from Tamil which is made on a big budget and Tamil stars like Vijay, Surya, Vikram etc were followed here just like Malayalees following Mammootty and Mohanlal. Tamil young actors found more fans here for them meanwhile the young stars of Malayalam film industry just looked out of source to match with them. But from this year the trends changed quite dramatically here in Mollywood as we are seeing a drastic decline of the market for Tamil cinema here in Mollywood now.
The first big film came this year was Shankar directorial film Ai starred by Vikram. Even though the film made a good collection here due to the curiosity it developed among the audience about its three year shoot and the dedication level of Vikram, totally the film received only average to below average opinion here from the audience. Then came the big film Masss starred by Suriya, directed by Venkat Prabhu. That bombed at box office here and bowed down before Malayalam film named Premam starred by Nivin Pauly.
In July came Kamal Haasan starrer Papanasam which was the Tamil version of Mollywood’s biggest hit Drishyam starred by Mohanlal. But it did not make much business here even though was a hit in Kollywood. Then films like Dhanush’s Maari, Ilayathalapathy Vijay starrer Puli came and now another Vikram starrer 10 Enradhukulla. All received bad opinion and has not made any impact in box office collections. The most heartening fact is that all these movies bowed down before different Malayalam films.
Malayalam cinema industry is now going through a great period as well with each week we are getting quality films and people have to choose from it. That’s a great sign for Malayalam cinema. Leading stars like Mammootty, Mohanlal and young stars like Prithviraj and Nivin Pauly are giving commercial successes along with other actors as well.
Even though some good films like Thani Oruvan, Kakka Muttai came from Kollywood to Mollywood this year, they could not make any impact here. The case of Telugu films is the same except Baahubali which was treated more of as an epic Indian film than a Telugu masala flick. This trend is going good and as a lover of Malayalam films each and every Malayalee is wishing the same.Malayalam cinema is now the first preference for us and all other language films are only a priority that can be easily avoidable now.
