In the last few years, the conversation about Telugu cinema getting more popular as compared to Hindi cinema, among Hindi cinema going audience, has gained momentum. Last year, with the release of Allu Arjun's Pushpa 2, it was evident as Pushpa 2 made over Rs 800 crore through its Hindi version as opposed to Rs 340 crore that it earned through its Telugu version. At the ongoing Waves Summit 2025, Nagarjuna spoke about the same and said that for Telugu audience, films such as Pushpa 2 aren't out of the ordinary but they are seen as special by the Hindi film going audience as they crave to see such larger than life heroes on screen. Nagarjuna said, "Pushpa made more money in other languages rather than Telugu, in the north languages especially. I think we have seen similar kind of stories in Telugu before, like Pushpa and it was nothing new for us, larger than life, Pushpa raj the character, we had seen that before." He then added that in states like Bihar, Punjab and UP, the audience enjoys watching larger-than-life characters in films like Pushpa, KGF and Baahubali. "They want to see their heroes like that. They want to see larger-than-life heroes," he said and added that people enjoy watching something that gives them a break from their real life. "They want to see magic happening on screen," he said. "That is what these larger-than-life films are doing but without losing the basic Indian stories. They are not going away from that," he said insisting that the success of these films is coming from their rooted storytelling. ALSO READ | Allu Arjun reveals it took over 80 takes to perfect the iconic pallu shot in Pushpa 2: ‘I told everyone we were going to do it until we get it right’ Nagarjuna then said that one might see it as "abnormal" when 20 people fall as a hero raises his fist but in Marvel and other superhero films, Hollywood does the same. "If you see a guy raising his fist and 20 people falling, you might find it abnormal but if you see Marvel films, Superman or anybody does the same thing but they just give a little bit of logic saying they have a special power but for us, we don't need that, we don't need special powers," he said.
