They once gave major fillips to many Bollywood stars’ careers, including Salman Khan (Wanted, 2009), Ajay Devgn (Singham, 2011) and Akshay Kumar (Rowdy Rathore, 2012). But lately, remakes of southern Indian-language films have been failing miserably. From Vikram Vedha, Jersey and Cuttputlli last year to Shehzada and Selfiee this year, the remakes have failed to stir up the audience’s excitement. This begs the question: is a fatigue setting in?

Trade expert Taran Adarsh advises against generalization. “If, in a span of 1.5 years, three remakes failed to perform, we also have examples like Drishyam 2 (2022) that clicked with the audience. It all boils down to how the remake is made. Selfiee and Shehzada were bad remakes. I have seen the originals — Driving Licence (2019) and Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020) — and felt that both these remakes were shoddy,” explains Adarsh.

Trade expert Komal Nahta and producer Ashwin Varde opine that the originals being freely accessible on OTT takes away the excitement of watching a remake. “When people have excessively consumed the original already, why would they be interested in watching another version of it, that too, just a year later?” notes Warde. “Vikram Vedha did not work because everyone had seen the dubbed version on YouTube,” says Nahta.

According to trade expert Atul Mohan, viewers are averse to paying to watch the same story twice in theatres. “Going to theatres is an expensive affair, and after the pandemic, people want to spend money on films that would give them something new,” he points out.

The result will be positive, Varde assures, “When producers start to reinvent their choices, even in terms of choosing the right film to remake. The fatigue is in the minds of the producers. We have to add something unique to bring freshness. Frame-by-frame remakes are not going to work now.”

Producer Ramesh Taurani, too, cautions against copy-pasting indiscriminately. “Har film ko uski audience ke hisaab se banana padhta hai. You cannot copy paste everything and expect the film to work,” says Taurani.