Why India’s Biggest Blockbuster Baahubali 2 is not getting desired response in China

Baahubali 2, the epic drama that broke all the box office records of Indian cinema globally after its initial release, has got failed to leave any mark in China. SS Rajamouli’s directorial opened on an acceptable note there but didn’t witness any noticeable growth over the weekend and got dropped abruptly afterwards.

After grossing 1700+ crores at the worldwide box office, Baahubali 2 was expected to perform terrifically in China like Aamir Khan’s Dangal. Washing out all the earlier expectations, this magnum opus registered the lowest opening week score ($10.85M) there as compared to Secret Superstar ($46.15M), Hindi Medium ($26.24M), Dangal ($25.57M), and Bajrangi Bhaijaan ($18.25M).

We had loaded too much weight of expectations on the shoulders of Baahubali 2 but forgot to understand the behaviour of the Chinese audience. All the previous Indian releases in China were the content-driven films with socially relevant and heartfelt story-lines, which were conveyable through emotions.

While Baahubali 2 is a fictional drama which is not easy to perceive completely with the help of subtitles. This is the reason, it is struggling to attract the audience there. Larger-than-life visuals & high octane actions are the USP of Baahubali: The Conclusion, but for that, they have Hollywood as the best option.

In fact, the first installment of the franchise Baahubali also didn’t perform very well at the box office in China. So when the prequel had witnessed only decent footfalls, how can we expect the second installment to gross terrific numbers with similar genre and plot. But still, despite being released after a year of its initial release, Baahubali 2 took higher opening than Bajrangi Bhaijaan & Dangal in China.