Karan Johar lavishes praise on Telugu cinema

Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar has opened up with his views on south Indian cinema, especially Telugu movies, in a discussion on what a pan-Indian film is all about.

Karan admits that even Hindi movies are not doing as much business as Telugu films in recent times. He even cites an example, taking Allu Arjun's recently released movie 'Pushpa' to explain the commercial stamina of Telugu movies.

"With no promotions at all, Allu Arjun's 'Pushpa' was released with just a few posters and the trailer. Even though Allu Arjun is not known in the north, the movie made a lot of money at the box-office. Can you imagine the scenario? Now, this is called the 'pan-India craze'," the Bollywood director said.

Karan opined that the whole terminology of a 'pan-Indian film' started with S.S. Rajamouli's 'Baahubali'. He said 'Baahubali 1' had done business of Rs 112 crore, whereas Rajamouli's previous film 'Makki' made just Rs 1 crore in the Hindi belt.

Karan also predicted that Rajamouli's upcoming magnum opus 'RRR' is going to be one of the biggest openers and might collect Rs 30 crore on the first day of its Hindi version alone in India.