The Telugu film industry has been doing well for a long time but it got a boost with the success of Bahubali – The Beginning (2015). It was dubbed in Hindi and released extensively in cinemas. The experiment succeeded as the Prabhas-starrer was a big hit in the Hindi-speaking markets. It even got a great viewership on television. As a result, the craze was tremendous for the sequel, Baahubali 2 – The Conclusion (2017). It was also quite loved and for the first time, a film in Hindi crossed the Rs. 500 crore mark. Ever since, several South films have been dubbed into Hindi. Even the original Telugu language films continued to do well. Meanwhile, a perception was built that Bollywood has supposedly been boycotted while Telugu films do blockbuster business. The myth was broken last year when Hindi films did record business.
In this special report, we shall take a look at the performance of the Telugu film industry in 2023. The collections in 2022 were Rs. 2,145 crores, the highest ever. The 2023 figure was even more at Rs. 2,265 crores.
At the same time, however, when compared to 2022 and the performance of Hindi films in 2023, the domestic box office gross collections of Telugu films paled last year. In 2022, RRR was the biggest hit ever, collecting more than Rs. 500 crores in Telugu. The biggest Telugu grosser in 2023 was the Prabhas-starrer Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire. It collected Rs. 278 crores gross. In other words, the biggest film in Telugu last year didn’t cross the Rs. 300 crore mark.
This was followed by Chiranjeevi and Ravi Teja-starrer Waltair Veerayya at Rs. 181 crores and Prabhas-starrer Adipurush at Rs. 153 crores. A lot was expected from the latter due to the casting of Prabhas and since it was based on the Ramayana. It did have a huge opening but collections soon came down as the word of mouth was very poor.
The fourth and fifth positions were taken by Veera Simha Reddy (Rs. 109 crores) and Bhagavanth Kesari (Rs. 101 crores). Both these films starred Nandamuri Balakrishna.
Telugu Domestic Box Office Footfalls
2013 - 13.8 cr.
2014 - 15.6 cr.
2015 - 18.4 cr.
2016 – 18.1 cr.
2017 - 25.2 cr.
2018 - 18.6 cr.
2019 - 18.2 cr.
2020 - 7.7 cr.
2021 - 16.4 cr.
2022 – 23.3 cr.
2023 – 24.2 cr.
Telugu Domestic Box Office (In cr. gross)
2013 – 869 cr.
2014 – 1,014 cr.
2015 – 1,214 cr.
2016 – 1,249 cr.
2017 – 1,865 cr.
2018 – 1,384 cr.
2019 – 1,404 cr.
2020 - 522 cr.
2021 – 1,118 cr.
2022 – 2,145 cr.
2023 – 2,265 cr.
Telugu Top 10 Box Office 2023 (In cr. gross)
Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire – 278 cr.
Waltair Veerayya – 181 cr.
Adipurush – 153 cr.
Veera Simha Reddy – 109 cr.
Bhagavanth Kesari – 101 cr.
Bro – 92 cr.
Dasara – 85 cr.
Virupaksha – 69 cr.
Baby – 68 cr.
Kushi – 68 cr.
Source: The Ormax Box Office report: 2023
