With Baahubali (2015), the trend of releasing South films in Hindi dubbed versions has become commonplace. Several films like Pushpa, RRR, KGF – Chapter 2, Kantara, Rocketry, Karthikeya 2 etc emerged as huge hits in Hindi due to which the trend is here to stay. Interestingly, hardly any Malayalam film has taken the Pan-India route. But things seem to be slowly changing. 2018, which was released on May 5 and is doing roaring business at the box office, will now be released in Hindi on May 12. The film’s actors Tovino Thomas, Asif Ali, Tanvi Ram, director Jude Anthany Joseph and producer Venu Kunnapally made this announcement on May 9 in Mumbai during a post-screening conversation.
Tovino Thomas, while speaking about this aspect, made an emotional appeal. He said, “Have you ever thought how hard it is for us to bring a film to national attention? We work on constrained budgets. We don’t work in extravagant setups. When we are working on a movie, our salary is a very small percentage of the movie’s budget. We don’t work for money. We work with passion.”
Tovino Thomas continued, “We are a small state in the southernmost corner of India. Our pioneers have been making very good movies. Our films, however, release in a very less number of theatres. I wish more distributors came to release Malayalam films. We don’t want them to distribute it for free or out of love for our cinema. Let them watch the film. If they like it and if they give it a proper release, it’ll be great. After releasing it on OTT or after people watch it on Telegram, we often get appreciation but it’s not worth it. It doesn’t do good to any of us. Hence, please understand how hard it is to bring a film to cinemas.”
Tovino then said, “We are trying our best but not many producers will spend a lot of money on promotions. Our film’s budget is less than the promotional budget of the biggest movie in Bollywood. These constraints make us work harder, and smarter. We work overtime and that’s how we are able to create these movies.”
2018, as the name suggests, the thriller is set in the backdrop of the 2018 Kerala Floods. As per reports, it has earned around Rs. 17 crores nett in Kerala with weekday collections being as strong as weekend ones. In U.A.E/G.C.C., 2018 has reportedly earned Rs. 17 crores gross.
