Indian Film 'Baahubali 2' Is Breaking Box Office Records

The new movie Baahubali 2: The Conclusion has broken sales records in India and is even a big hit at U.S. box offices. Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times explains the phenomenon.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Hey, if you check out the top 10 list of films from this past weekend, you will not be surprised by most - "Guardians Of The Galaxy," another "Fast And Furious" movie, a new Disney pic, and also a blockbuster called "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BAAHUBALI 2: THE CONCLUSION")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, speaking Telugu).

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It has become the highest-grossing Indian film in history. It had the third-biggest foreign language debut ever in the United States, only behind two Jet Li martial arts films.

SHASHANK BENGALI: It beat out Tom Hanks' latest movie.

INSKEEP: That's Shashank Bengali, who reports on India for the LA Times. He says this movie is an epic tale full of swords and stallions and special effects, think "Gladiator" meets "300." And as I'm sure you've guessed, "Baahubali 2" is a much-anticipated sequel.

BENGALI: The first one had this incredible 30-minute battlefield scene. That's kind of what catapulted it to the top of the Indian box office two years ago. And it ignited this fervor for CGI epic films that really India has not made before.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BAAHUBALI 2: THE CONCLUSION")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Telugu).

GREENE: OK, worldwide box office so far more than $150 million. In the United States alone, it made $13 million in just the first seven days. And that is thanks in part to the extra money charged for the huge IMAX screens. Gitesh Pandya is the editor of boxofficeguru.com.

GITESH PANDYA: Kind of like a musical concert, you might pay more for a bigger band. It's the same situation here. People were happy to pay the extra money because it was such an event.

INSKEEP: This franchise began life as an underdog. It was not produced as part of the Bollywood system. And the actors aren't even speaking the majority language in India, Hindi. It's in a South Indian language, Telugu. Pandya says the U.S. crowds are mostly made up of Indian-Americans, folks from the Indian diaspora, but there are more of them than ever before.

PANDYA: "Baahubali 2" has crossed over to the Hindi speakers, who normally would only go to see Bollywood films. The fact that many different regions of India have their people seeing the film here in the U.S. is something that we have not seen before.

GREENE: "Baahubali 2" is subtitled "The Conclusion," but that may have been hasty. After seeing the box office reaction, the film's director told Variety magazine that maybe he could be persuaded to just make one more.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BAAHUBALI 2: THE CONCLUSION")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character, speaking Telugu).

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.