Producer Anurag Reddy of Chai Bisket has wondered why Little Hearts is not minting Rs 100 Cr when Malayalam rom-coms like Premalu have garnered that kind of money. "Smaller Malayalam films, once they get good talk, go on to score huge numbers. But that's not the case with very good small Telugu films, which are not able to hit certain bigger milestones despite having a bigger local market," he wrote.
Telugu movie market conditions have increasingly alienated the family audience. "Cinema needs to be accessible for families, which means good theaters, shows, canteens, restrooms, and a longer theatrical window. When people know that a movie is coming out on OTT in four weeks, they won't prefer to watch it in theatres," analyzed Santosh Eppalapally, a social media user. Recently, a producer commented that many good Telugu movies would be drawing humongous crowds to theatres had it not been for OTT.
All conversations revolve around OTT in Telugu cinema, which is held solely responsible for the weakening of the theatrical market. High ticket prices is another culprit.
But there are other factors as well. Telugu audiences have higher expectations in general. Premalu was greatly valued because most Malayalam comedies have a dry comedy style. Premalu, in contrast, felt totally new-age. On the other hand, the standards of humour in Telugu have always been higher. From EVV Satyanarayana to SV Krishna Reddy, from Sreenu Vaitla to the K Vijaya Bhaskar-Trivikram duo, they have set a higher standard in the past decades. Consequently, you are not bowled over totally by the comedy in Little Hearts; it's just average even by the standards set by DJ Tillu and MAD. That also is an explanation for why Little Hearts is a Rs 30 Cr movie and not a Rs 100 Cr movie.
