There has always been a never ending debate about who’s the biggest star in South India and fans of the respective stars have always backed up their hero as the biggest. But whether one agrees or not a pan South Indian star has always been a Tamil hero all because of their additional dubbing market in Telugu along with their regular market.
So with Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan becoming old who’s the next biggest star in South India? While we would have quite a few choices here is what G Dhananjayan, Chief of UTV Productions South has to say about it based on the current performance. He says that it is none other than Suriya and puts him ahead of stars such as Vijay and Ajith from Tamil film industry and bevy of stars from Telugu film industry. Suriya, he says, has a huge market in Telugu apart from his regular market in Tamil which puts him ahead of the rest. Unlike others in Tamil film industry, Suriya has from the beginning put an effort to create an identity in Telugu which is fetching him results and not only that the actor is getting offers to act in direct Telugu films too as a result, he mentions.
So where does this leave our stars in comparison, well despite being stars in the biggest film industry of the South, thanks to lack of marketing skills and market beyond the regular shores, our stars are definitely struggling to keep pace with their Tamil counterparts. When even someone like Vijay, previously completely unknown to Telugu audience too is trying to woo them what excuse does our stars have for their lack of effort in this regard. Shouldn’t our actors take a leaf out of their Tamil counterparts and start to venture out in new markets?
