Post the crossover of SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali films, more and more south films have made their inroads in Hindi belt right from RRR to Pushpa franchise to KGF series or Kantara. If one takes a closer look at it has mostly been Telugu films that have been able to transcend the regional barriers followed by Tamil and Kannada. But somehow Malayalam films have not been able to make enough inroads into North India and this can be seen in the box office response to some of their biggest hits. The biggest hit of Malayalam cinema has been Manjummel Boys which has garnered more than Rs 142 crore at the box office but the film was never released in Hindi. At present the most successful Malayalam film in Hindi language has been Unni Mukundan’s Marco which collected Rs 12.81 crore in Hindi while it’s Malayalam collection stands at Rs 41.57 crore. At second spot for a while was Prithviraj and Mohanlal’s magnum opus L2: Empuraan which overall collected Rs 106.77 crore at the box office but it’s Hindi contribution was just Rs 2.59 crore. But the second spot has now been taken over by Dulquer Salmaan , Dominic Arun and Kalyani Priyadarshan’s ‘Lokah: Chapter 1-Chandra’ which in 11 days has collected Rs 3 crore from the Hindi version of the film. The overall collection of the film stands at Rs 122.05 crore making it the second biggest Malayalam film of all time beating Mohanlal’s Thudarum. Though going by the trends it seems Lokah still has long legs at the box office but when it comes to Hindi version the run won’t be crossing Rs 5 crore mark in the times to come. The maximum Lokah has minted in Hindi is Rs 40 lakh which was also on it’s first Sunday but post that it’s collection has oscillated between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. Besides Marco, Lokah and Empuraan- the other Malayalam which found small audience in Hindi have been Tovino Thomas’s 2018 which collected Rs 26 lakh while Prithviraj’s The Goat Life collected Rs 53 lakh.
