Except Rajinikanth and Suriya, who are the star heroes in Tamil cinema as of now?
Vijay has become the Chief Minister of the state, and he is almost retired from films.
As per sources, Ajith is not signing any film as he is expecting a remuneration of Rs 170 crore, like he took for his last film. But the industry is not ready to afford even half of that for him.
Without big stars in place, it is obviously difficult to pull audiences to theatres.
Suriya's Karuppu, though a routine, mundane, outdated and cringe film, worked wonders at the box office because he is one of the only two big superstars left.
Meanwhile, as the Tamil industry is not paying much, character artists, music directors, and even storytellers are flocking to Hyderabad in search of jobs.
The Telugu film industry is like a gold mine for struggling Tamil actors and technicians now, who generally get paid 2-4 times and sometimes even 10 times of what they get paid in Kollywood.
Well, the Tamil industry is wondering how the Telugu film industry is paying huge paychecks to its heroes and technicians.
They are also getting shocked to see so many star heroes right from Chiranjeevi, Prabhas, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan, NTR, Mahesh Babu and even crazy stars like Nani, Vijay Devarakonda and many more are in place to pull crowds to theatres.
What they should know is that both the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments encourage ticket price hikes for big-star films.
Sometimes they go up to Rs 1,000 for paid premieres and about Rs 500– Rs 600 during the first week.
Maximum traction comes from fans during that period. But in Tamil Nadu the ticket prices are the least when compared to all other places.
As ticket prices can be hiked with government permission, the budgets of Telugu films have skyrocketed.
Though poor-content films bomb at the box office and average-content films end up as cost failures, even superhits mostly cross only the breakeven point despite these ticket hikes.
Such ticket price hikes are not seen in Tamil Nadu. Adding to that, the Tamil film industry is reportedly poor at managing relationships with OTT platforms, according to industry insiders.
Telugu producers, on the other hand, are known for maintaining strong relationships with OTT players, which has helped them secure better digital deals and maximize non-theatrical revenues.
It remains to be seen whether Vijay, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and a film star himself, will address the challenges facing the Tamil film industry.
