From ‘Vikram’ and ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ to ‘Beast’: 2022’s most talked-about films on Indian Twitter were from the south

Twitter India has revealed that 2022’s top-five most talked about films on the platform were all from South India, indicating the region’s hold over the Indian film industry.

“Beast, Vikram, KGF: Chapter 2, RRR, and S arkaru Vaari Paaata were the top five Indian movies on our platform for this year,” said Cheryl Ann Couto, Head of Partners, Twitter India. These five films – featuring some of the biggest stars like Vijay, Kamal Haasan, Yash, NTR Jr, Ram Charan, and Mahesh Babu – have so far generated over 101 million tweets.

Last year, Vijay’s tweet unveiling the first look of Beast was the most retweeted and liked tweet in Indian entertainment. Mahesh Babu’s update on resuming work for Sarkaru Vaari Paata was the most quoted tweet.

An EY-FICCI report revealed that South Indian films dominated the domestic box-office revenues in 2021. According to the report, they collectively amassed Rs 2,400 crore. Bollywood films were a distant second at Rs 800 crore, while Hollywood movies came third at Rs 500 crore. With many big-budget Hindi films failing to pass muster at the box office this year too, South Indian films con seems to be dominating the Indian film scene.

Tamil Twitter

According to Twitter India, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada films generate the most engagement in the entertainment space in India.

Tamil, especially, has gained immense popularity recently. It is the third most used language on the platform. Mentions of ‘Kollywood’ have gone up by 14% compared to last year. “Even when we launched Twitter Spaces, they were the ones who quickly got hooked to it,” said Amrita Tripathi, Head of Global Content Partnerships at Twitter India, “They were doing singalongs, discussions. Actors and other celebrities were readily joining Spaces to interact with their fans.”

Only a few days ago, director Pa Ranjith along with his cast and crew promoted their recently released film Natchathiram Nagargiradhu. Vikram, who recently joined Twitter, made his Spaces debut to promote his film Cobra. It garnered 128,000 tune-ins. Meanwhile, Suriya’s Spaces to talk about his film, Etharkkum Thunindhavan, had 61,000 live listeners and 160,000 tune-ins. Owing to the popularity that Twitter Spaces enjoy among Tamil audiences, a dedicated #TamilSpaces emoji was launched in August 2021 to encourage conversations in the language.

Vijay, Keerthy Suresh, AR Rahman, Rajinikanth, and Vijay Sethupathi are the top-five Tamil personalities discussed on Twitter. The top-five most discussed topics among the Tamil audiences are ‘Tamil cinema’, ‘tamil cinema actors’, ‘cricket’, ‘tamil directors, producers & writers’, and ‘food’.