When Rohit Shetty, Prosenjit Chatterjee and some names from other regions came together to announce INCA (Indian National Cine Academy) in Mumbai last week, it was supremely mistimed. On the one hand were fancy dreams of an entity called Indian Cinema. On the other, was the crash of another overhyped “pan-Indian” star at the box office. The failure of Prabhas’ The RajaSaab, which had a landing cost of ₹400 crore, punctured whatever hopes there were that the entire country would lay out the red carpet for every regional star. At one point, there was even a comparison made between Prabhas and SRK to determine who was the bigger star. It was a pipe dream, for all that the Telugu actor had on his resume was a decade-old Baahubali (2015, 2017). The epic earnings of Rajamouli’s two-edition fantasy drama put a ₹2,000 crore credit figure on Prabhas’ balance sheet, thus inflating his value. What followed Baahubali was Saaho (2019) with a ₹300 crore-plus budget that underperformed in Prabhas’ own Telugu backyard. Radhe Shyam (2022), costing ₹200-350 crore, brought in less than its investment. Salaar (2023), with a budget of ₹250-450 crore, grossed over ₹600 crore worldwide. A relief but not an overwhelming feat. Adipurush (2024), costing upwards of ₹600 crore, barely brought in 400. Kalki 2898 AD (2024), at a pricey ₹600 crore plus, grossed over ₹1,000 crore. But the ROI was not half as formidable as its cost or hype. Please factor in that gross figures are not the same as the producer’s income. If Kalki was as massive as it was made out to be, its sequel would have been roaring in the studios. But we know that Deepika Padukone has walked out of it, and one year later, the shoot is yet to take off.

The dismal figures of The RajaSaab were compounded with disappointment over Prabhas’ somnambulistic performance. Like he was taking his stardom for granted. “We give him a territory instead of money,” said a producer. But will producers indulge him if he continues to exhibit zero script sense and sleepwalks through his films?

Also, where is the fond wish of an all-India appeal that regional stars are supposed to have? Will Prabhas, for instance, be mobbed if he walked down Park Street or Chowringhee Road? Will Allu Arjun of Pushpa fame find hysterical fans outside his region? Ram Charan’s Game Changer (2025) too didn’t change the game anywhere.

In recent years, filmmakers have attempted a bhel-puri of cultures for that elusive nationwide appeal. Aditya Chopra concentrated on calculations in War 2 with Hrithik Roshan + Junior NTR, where, instead of a wider audience, the Andhra actor’s presence ended up spoiling the visuals. After casting him opposite Ananya Panday in Liger, Karan Johar tried so hard to sell Vijay Deverakonda to the Hindi belt that he got guests on his Koffee show to vote for him as the sexiest man in the industry. Liger flopped, Deverakonda and his “sexiness” got the boot.

What requires closer scrutiny are two pathbreaking blockbusters that bust the newly discovered mathematical formula. Baahubali, Rajamouli’s best-performing film to date, starred South Indian actors and won a landslide without a single Hindi film star in it. Rajamouli himself began to believe in the North-South formula when he added Ajay Devgn and Alia Bhatt to RRR (2022), which did not require Hindi actors and did not attain the cult status of Baahubali. Another triumph that did not follow the formula was Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, made with Ranveer Singh-Akshaye Khanna-Sanjay Dutt. With his script as his main star, Dhar’s Dhurandhar outperformed record breakers like Dangal in every region.

With cultures so varied, the desire for Indian cinema over regional is thus more a wish than a reality. Content creation is an art. It’s not mathematics.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author