Overseas market is a golden goose for Telugu producers as it is the market that can save them from the uncertainty of the local market and give a profit. Local markets run on a principle of previous dues and run of the films while the Overseas market looks at the latest film and star cast.
If the movie has Mahesh as the lead then a Million USD is easily made. Also, if it appeals to urban audiences more, you can be sure about 1.5 Million USD to 2 Million USD for any actor.
When you have such a market, people need to be very clever about it but producers did not have the far sight and encouraged bidding war hoping that people will just show up and success like Baahubali-2 made them think that their films can make more than 10 crores, easily. Which converts to 1.5-1.7 Million USD. This is a huge number and in order to make it work, distributors decided to increase the premiere ticket rates and even first-week ticket rates for Telugu films.
This move is slowly killing the interest of audiences as Telugu Cinema more often than not sticks to formula films. Not every film can create an interest like Baahubali or be as successful as Rangasthalam, Bharat Ane Nenu. While Baahubali made more than 20 MillIon, next best made 3.6 Million USD only.
This should have made producers play their cards wisely and this year Majilli, Jersey kind off films barely making a profit and even Mahesh struggling to pull crowds with Maharshi actually, confirm that producers are killing overseas market!
