The Kannada banner has stepped in to release the low-budget hit across Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam after Trivikram Srinivas's earlier Telugu release plan fell apart.
Hanuman Ansh is still going strong in its fifth week and now it's got a new distributor for the South. Telugu360 reported, in an exclusive, that Hombale Films has picked up the entire South theatrical rights to the film, covering Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
No release date yet. The dubbing work for all four languages is done, per the report, but Hombale hasn't announced when the film actually hits South screens.
This is a bit of a turnaround. Trivikram Srinivas, the Tollywood director, had earlier said his own production house would handle the Telugu release. That plan didn't survive contact with reality. Telugu360 says those plans have been shelved, and the Telugu rollout that fans were expecting just stalled out.
Enter Hombale. The Kannada banner behind some of the biggest South franchises now owns the entire South release, not just Telugu. That's a bigger footprint than what was on the table before, and it puts one house in charge of Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam too, languages that hadn't really been part of the conversation until now.
Worth remembering what Hanuman Ansh actually is here. It's directed and produced by Vishal Chaturvedi, based on a book called Divine Detour: That Changed My Life, which draws on the life of Neem Karoli Baba. Nobody was betting on this one. A small-budget film that's turned into one of the bigger stories of the year at the Indian box office, and it's still running strong five weeks in.
The South rights deal makes sense on paper. A film doing this kind of business in Hindi belts was always going to attract attention from regional distributors looking for a ready-made hit rather than a fresh gamble. Hombale, which has built its name on scale and franchise thinking, taking on an already-proven film rather than developing one from scratch is a different play for them, but not necessarily a strange one.
What happens next comes down to timing. The dubbing being locked means Hombale could move fast if it wants to. Whether it goes for a quick same-week type push to ride the current wave, or waits and plans a fuller regional rollout complete with promotions in each market, isn't clear yet.
Telugu360's report doesn't carry a date, and there's been no confirmation yet from Hombale itself on when audiences in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru or Kochi actually get to see the film on the big screen. That announcement is the next thing to watch for.
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