South cinema's Hindi takeover has stalled, and the industry is pinning the reset on three films that haven't even opened yet: Allu Arjun's Raaka, Prabhas' Spirit, and Mahesh Babu's Varanasi.

According to Koimoi, the pan-India machine that Baahubali 2 built and that Pushpa, RRR, KGF Chapter 2 and Kantara turned into a genuine Hindi-market habit has gone quiet over the last couple of years. The numbers from that run were staggering. Pushpa did 106 crore net in Hindi back in 2021 despite Covid restrictions. RRR pulled 277 crore net the following year. KGF Chapter 2 blew past that with 434.62 crore net. Kantara, on a fraction of the budget, still found 81.1 crore net.

Every star who rode that wave has since hit a wall. Ram Charan's big deal and Peddi both flopped. Jr NTR got squeezed out by Devara and War 2 landing wrong. Yash, who looked unstoppable after KGF 2, watched Toxic turn into a straight disaster. Even Prabhas, the man who arguably started this whole conversation, has had a mixed run since Baahubali 2 — Radhe Shyam bombed, Salaar recovered with 152 crore net despite clashing with Dunki, Kalki 2898 AD scored a big 295 crore net, though Koimoi notes Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone did plenty of the heavy lifting there, and then The RajaSaab stumbled.

And yet Pushpa 2 made 836.09 crore net in Hindi. Kantara Chapter 1 added another 224.53 crore net. So the audience hasn't gone anywhere. It's the content that's been inconsistent, not the appetite.

The 2027 bet

That's the backdrop against which the next round of releases matters so much. Prabhas goes first, with Fauzi landing in December 2026, and Koimoi reports the poster response has already been positive. After that comes Spirit in March 2027, with Salaar 2 somewhere behind it in the pipeline.

Allu Arjun returns to screens with Raaka, his first film in two years since Pushpa 2, likely releasing sometime in 2027. It's being built as one of the most expensive Indian films ever made, with Atlee directing, and the ambition attached to it is blunt: beat Pushpa 2's Hindi number if the film delivers.

Mahesh Babu's Varanasi, from SS Rajamouli, lands the same year and carries weight simply by pairing that star with that director. Rishab Shetty, meanwhile, is going bigger with The Pride Of Bharat: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, a step up from the Kantara universe that made him a Hindi-market name in the first place.

None of these films have opened yet, so none of this is settled. But the industry's read, per Koimoi, is that the slump is a content problem, not a fatigue problem, and 2027 is shaping up as the year that gets tested.

Fauzi arrives first in December. Everything after it will be watched a little harder than usual.