The year 2024 ended on a high note for the Kannada film industry as both yearender releases, UI and MAX, managed to rake in good footfalls for both single screens and multiplexes, while also keeping the box-office collections ringing. In 2025, January and February saw a surge of Kannada film releases, with 22 and 33 films hitting theatres respectively. While the first four weeks of January averaged three or four releases, the final week witnessed nine films!
Lack of star-driven films dampening audience enthusiasm? Given the Kannada film industry’s typical annual output of a little over 200 films, this year’s release count is poised to climb. But, the absence of stardriven films appears to have contributed to the overall lacklustre performance in the first two months. Bigticket films of actors like Shivarajkumar, Raj B Shetty, Upendra, Dhruva Sarja, Rishabh Shetty, Ramesh, Ganesh, Vijay Kumar, Dhananjaya are all slated for release in the second half of the year.
Generating buzz, word-of-mouth key to guaranteeing a larger audience for a movie? Naveen Shankar’s Nodidavaru Enantare, which debuted on January 31, saw its screen count increase within three days. Director Kuldeep Cariappa shares, “It started off with the usual Friday panic as the seats were not full in many theatres. But after the evening show on Friday, there was this huge momentum on social media. People started tagging us after watching the film. By Monday, we had added 13 new screens because of demand. I met people in the audience who were watching it for the third time. Along with Nodidavaru, there were eight other Kannada releases that week, plus other language films, and the following week we had a very big Tamil film coming up. But amid these, Nodidavaru managed to reach the right audience, thanks to social media and word-of-mouth.
Kannada cinema pins hope on big-ticket releases of 2025
end of article