The Baahubali era of pan-India cinema is dying a slow death and signs are everywhere

There is something telling about Telugu star Nani's refusal to call The Paradise a 'pan-India film'. At a time when filmmakers routinely use the label to signal scale, ambition and a nationwide audience, the Telugu star seems aware that the term has lost some of its meaning. “It’s an over-abused word,” he said, raising a larger question about where the pan-India phenomenon stands in 2026, and whether the label that once promised a national theatrical audience still carries the same weight.

But before we assess where the pan-India trend stands in Indian cinema today, let's first revisit what Nani actually said at the event, and why his remarks made us look at the label more closely.

With The Paradise set to release on September 24, the actor was asked about the film's multilingual release at a recent press conference. His response was unusually direct. "We don't want to call it a pan-India film. It's an over-abused word. Apart from Telugu, it's releasing in a few other languages. Definitely, Telugu is our prime target. And we hope people watch The Paradise in other languages and enjoy it," he said.

The statement comes at a time when “pan-India” has become one of the most frequently used terms in the Indian film business. What began as a genuine theatrical phenomenon has gradually become a marketing push strategy – a way of signalling scale, ambition and a release across multiple languages. And we have examples to back that claim, because 2026 has exposed some cracks in that formula.

The year has seen films such as Dhurandhar 2, Toxic, Peddi, Jana Nayagan, The Raja Saab, Dacoit: A Love Story, KD: The Devil and I'm Game attempt to tap audiences beyond their home markets. Some have made substantial money in their native markets, as expected of them. But most of these big-budget, pan-India spectacles simply opened big and went down with the speed of a shooting star. The result? An industry struggling to justify the enormous budgets, expectations and scale attached to its pan-India ambitions.

Does the pan-India label still have the power it once did?When the label became the strategy

The pan-India boom changed the economics of Indian cinema. Films such as Baahubali, KGF, Kantara, Pushpa and RRR demonstrated that a movie made primarily for one linguistic market could become a theatrical event across the country. But those films did something more than simply release in several languages. They created curiosity outside their home markets. Their stars acquired national recognition. Their stories, spectacle and scale gave audiences a reason to cross linguistic boundaries. And it all started with Baahubali in 2015.

Over time, however, the phrase “pan-India film” began to be used almost as a genre of its own. A Telugu film with a Hindi release became pan-India. A Tamil star vehicle dubbed into multiple languages became pan-India. A Kannada film with a nationwide marketing campaign became pan-India.

Trade analyst Ramesh Bala, speaking exclusively to India Today, believes the term has now been stretched far beyond its original meaning. “In the last few years, pan-India successes are only a handful. There is a misconception in the industry that if a movie is dubbed in five languages, then it's considered a pan-India film,” he told us.

He also pointed to another increasingly common practice: films announcing titles and posters in several languages, even when their actual theatrical release in those markets may be limited. “The pan-India term is now being loosely used by many films, even if it's dubbed. It's simply a marketing push,” Bala said, adding that if 20 to 30 films are pitched as pan-India films in a year, “hardly one or two succeed." The problem, therefore, is that distribution can be national without the audience's interest being national.

And that distinction has become increasingly visible this year.When star power and scale aren't enough

Toxic was one of the year's biggest examples of the gap between expectation and theatrical performance. Yash entered the film with the enormous national visibility generated by KGF: Chapter 2. Toxic had the scale, the star and the multilingual release strategy associated with a major pan-India event. Yet the film struggled to sustain momentum despite a sizeable opening.

Its performance also demonstrated an uncomfortable reality for the industry: a star's national popularity does not automatically transfer to every film they make.

Ramesh Bala described Toxic as a film that had the ingredients for pan-India appeal but ultimately “was a pan-India failure”. Speaking about it, he said, "Not just the regional market, Toxic did not perform in any market. The film's content was such that it failed to draw audiences in." The same conversation applies to Peddi. Ram Charan's post-RRR national profile gave the film considerable visibility, but its performance across markets did not replicate the kind of uniform nationwide response that the term pan-India tends to imply.

Then came Jana Nayagan. Vijay's final film before his full-time political career carried enormous expectations, not just because of the actor but because of the significance attached to his last theatrical outing. It was released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi and was expected to draw audiences well beyond Tamil Nadu. Instead, the film underperformed against those expectations.

While Vijay enjoys a massive fan following, his strongest market is Tamil cinema. But, its release in Hindi, titled Jan Neta, failed to generate curiosity, let alone the numbers. Jana Nayagan therefore offered another reminder that a familiar national star and a multi-language release do not, by themselves, guarantee a national theatrical phenomenon.

The same questions surround several other large-scale releases of 2026, from The Raja Saab and KD: The Devil and Dacoit: A Love Story. The issue is not that every film has to become a Rs 500 crore blockbuster to qualify as successful. It is that the economics of many of these projects have been built around the expectation of a market much larger than their eventual audience.When “pan-India” starts inflating the film itself

There is another, less visible cost to the pan-India obsession: the label can begin influencing the production long before a film reaches theatres. Once a project is positioned as a national event, expectations around scale, casting, locations, action sequences, visual effects, dubbing and marketing inevitably grow. Bigger stars and technicians are brought in to appeal across markets, schedules become more complicated, and productions can stretch for years.

A producer, who requested anonymity, told India Today that the industry is now at a point where it needs to “pause and analyse how every industry functions, the rising production costs, the inevitable postponements and the over-demanding OTT deals.”The 'pan-India' strategy for OTT deals

The producer added that some filmmakers use the pan-India label as a marketing strategy to secure OTT deals, while others genuinely believe their projects can travel across the country. But, according to the producer, the films pitched as pan-India ventures have not necessarily delivered at that level. The answer, the producer believes, could begin with the filmmaking process itself.

“Every film needs to have meticulous pre-production where everything is planned to the T,” the producer said, before adding, “This will avoid postponements, budget shoot-ups and unnecessary pressure on the producer.”

That pressure is particularly significant when a film's economics are built around multiple markets. Delays, reshoots and escalating production costs become harder to absorb because the film is no longer being judged against the economics of its original market. It has to perform across several territories simply to justify the scale at which it was made.

In that sense, “pan-India” can become a burden: the label raises the ceiling on expectations while simultaneously raising the cost of reaching it. And when a film eventually underperforms, the gap between what it was expected to earn and what it actually earns can be far more damaging than its headline box-office number suggests.The curious case of the films that didn't plan to be pan-India

And then there is the other side of the story. Some of the year's most interesting theatrical performers were not born with a “pan-India” ambition.

Hanuman Ansh is perhaps the clearest example. A small Hindi film reportedly made on a budget of around Rs 2 crore, initially looked nothing like the giant theatrical spectacles that have come to define the pan-India conversation. But strong word of mouth transformed its fortunes, with the film eventually becoming one of the year's biggest surprise success stories.

Its journey is revealing. There was no enormous star whose existing national fan base could be leveraged. There was no giant franchise carrying pre-release anticipation across languages. There was no need to convince audiences that this was an “event”. People watched it, talked about it, recommended it — and the audience grew.

In other words, the film became a success after audiences embraced it, rather than being sold as a national success before they did. That distinction matters. And now, it enjoys Hindi release even in South markets.Regional cinema is travelling — differently

Hanuman Ansh is not an isolated example. Films such as Bethlehem Kudumba Unit (Malayalam), Vaazha 2 (Malayalam), Irumudi (Telugu) and Aadu 3 (Malayalam) have also contributed to a different kind of cross-market movement this year. Ramesh Bala sees this as one of the more interesting developments of 2026 — the rise of what could be called a "pan-South reception".

“Malayalam films like Vaazha 2, Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, Telugu film Irumudi, Tamil films like Karuppu, Mandaadi are becoming big hits in other languages as well," said Bala. But there is a clear limitation to that movement. “These South films are cracking the code to become pan-South hits, but they're not able to crack the Hindi market,” Bala said, pointing out that the Hindi market remains particularly driven by action and superstar appeal.

He cited the example of Rajinikanth's Jailer 2, which he believes could have an advantage in the Hindi market because of Hrithik Roshan's cameo.

The reverse is visible too. Dhurandhar 2, one of the biggest successes of the year, has shown how difficult that cross-market equation can be in the other direction. According to trade website Sacnilk, the film collected around Rs 1,296.18 crore gross in Hindi, compared with just Rs 49.77 crore in Telugu, Rs 22.85 crore in Tamil, Rs 4.55 crore in Kannada and Rs 2.05 crore in Malayalam. The numbers underline the extent to which even a major Hindi blockbuster can remain overwhelmingly concentrated in its home-language market despite a wider theatrical release.

The larger point is that even within India, “pan-India” is not necessarily one homogeneous market. A film can travel successfully from Kerala to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh and still struggle to make the same journey into the Hindi belt.

The geography of Indian cinema is becoming more fluid, but it is not seamless.Word of mouth is becoming the real pan-India strategy

This is perhaps the biggest lesson from 2026. The Indian audience is no longer restricted by language in the way the theatrical market once assumed. But that does not mean audiences will automatically watch a film simply because it has been dubbed or released simultaneously in their language. They need a reason.

That reason could be a spectacular action film, a compelling story, a beloved character, a franchise, a cultural connection or simply strong word of mouth.

The success of Hanuman Ansh demonstrates the last of these particularly well. The film did not have to manufacture the perception of national demand. Its audience effectively created that demand. That also explains why the “pan-India” label may be losing some of its value. If every big-budget film is described as pan-India, the phrase eventually stops distinguishing anything.Who still has the pan-India pull?

For Bala, there is another important distinction: not every star or filmmaker has the ability to draw audiences across the country. “Only certain stars like Allu Arjun, SS Rajamouli, Shah Rukh Khan among others have that pan-India pull,” he said. That pull, therefore, remains valuable, but it is concentrated.

“Pan-India hits happen only once in a blue moon and not every few months,” Bala said. “Directors and makers are ambitious, but the output isn't what they expected.” That may be the heart of the industry's current dilemma. The ambition to create a national blockbuster has not disappeared. If anything, it has grown. But the number of films capable of converting that ambition into a genuine cross-country theatrical phenomenon remains limited.

The biggest test of the model may come from a film that is designed from the beginning to transcend language and geography. Ramayana: Part 1, starring Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana, is being mounted as a large-scale retelling of the epic and is scheduled for a Diwali 2026 release. Unlike many films that are retroactively described as pan-India after finding success, Ramayana is being conceived as a major multi-market theatrical spectacle.

Bala believes it is one of the projects that could potentially have the kind of nationwide impact the industry continues to chase. But even here, the uncertainty remains. A recognisable story, major stars, visual scale and a multilingual approach can create the ingredients for a national event. They cannot guarantee the audience response.So, is pan-India cinema dead?

Not quite dead yet, but certainly not thriving either. The bigger casualty may be the old assumption that simply calling a film "pan-India" is enough to make the audience follow. A pan-India release can travel across languages and borders; the audience still has to choose to travel with it.

There is still a huge market for films that travel across linguistic boundaries. The success of films from different industries proves that audiences are perfectly willing to cross those boundaries.

But they are increasingly doing so because they want to watch the film, rather than because the industry has declared it to be a pan-India event. That is an important distinction.

The first phase of pan-India cinema was about breaking linguistic barriers. The next phase could be about breaking the industry's dependence on the label itself. Nani's comments about The Paradise perhaps capture that shift better than any box-office number. He is not saying audiences outside Telugu-speaking markets don't matter. Quite the opposite. He hopes they watch the film and enjoy it. He simply doesn't believe the film needs the “pan-India” tag to make that happen.

And in 2026, that may be the more interesting definition of pan-India cinema: not a film released everywhere, but a film audiences choose to take everywhere.- EndsPublished By: K JananiPublished On: Sep 19, 2026 10:06 ISTALSO READ | Why every Telugu film needs to be pan-India? The cracks and how it's fixing itself