With yet another one of his films bombing at the box office, it’s high time we addressed the elephant in the room: is the age of the Salman Khan formula and his type of films over? Are moviegoers giving him a hint that he must start pushing the boundaries as an actor and try his hand at meatier roles and content-driven films, instead of limiting himself to a template that has been obsolete for quite a few years? With the massive debacles of Farhad Samji’s Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023) and AR Murugadoss’ Sikandar (2025), and the underperformance of Maneesh Sharma’s Tiger 3 (2024), Salman is currently in dire need of a project that could put him back on the map.
Nonetheless, while promoting Sikandar, Salman had come up with a strange theory as to why his films – or even Bollywood movies in general – were not working at the box office. He blamed the audience in the South for not supporting Bollywood films, like how the viewers in the north back South movies. Now, Telugu star Nani has refuted Salman’s claims and maintained that the South Indian states have always harboured a love for Hindi movies.
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“Woh (Hindi) original hai, yeh (South) baad mein aaya. Yeh South ko jo pyaar mil raha hai, woh recent hai. Magar jo Bollywood ko pyaar milta hai South mein, woh toh decades se hai. Waha har ek aadmi ko aap punchenge ‘Aapka favourite Hindi film konsi hai’, toh they will have childhood memories of Amitabh Bachchan (Hindi cinema is the original, South cinema came later. The love that South cinema is receiving now is a recent phenomenon. But the love that Bollywood has received in the South has been there for decades. If you ask anyone there, ‘What is your favourite Hindi film?’, they’ll have childhood memories of Amitabh Bachchan),” Nani pointed out during a chat with DNA.
The HIT 3 actor added, “They will talk about so many films. So we always watched (Hindi) films. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Dil Toh Pagal Hai were blockbusters in Hyderabad and other southern states. Everyone is now lapping South, but Hindi cinema is always lapped up across the country.”
“Nahi-nahi, waha nahi chale? Bina chale kaise superstar ban gaye? 100 per cent chalti hai, and we all love him (No, no — they didn’t work there? How can someone become a superstar without their films working? His films definitely worked 100 per cent, and we all love him). We all watched so many films of Salman. Movies like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun have cultural importance there. ‘Didi Tera Dewar Deewana’ and other songs we used to play at our wedding,” he mentioned.
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During the promotions for Sikandar, Salman claimed that while the movies of stars like Rajinikanth and Chiranjeevi work in the Hindi market, the films of Bollywood stars don’t get as much reception in the South. “When my film is released there, it will not get the numbers because their fan following is very strong. I’ll be on the street, and they will say, ‘Bhai, Bhai’, but they will not go to the theatres. We’ve accepted them (south stars) here, and their films do well because we go and see them, like those of Rajinikanth garu, Chiranjeevi garu, Suriya or Ram Charan. But their fans do not go and see our films,” he claimed.
Made on a reported budget of Rs 200 crore, Sikandar had bombed at the box office, grossing just Rs 184.86 crore worldwide, according to industry tracker Sacnilk.
