Mollywood is the pick of the season!

With its hilarious plots and low production costs, Malayalam movies cater to multi-lingual audiences in the form of remakes
The freshness quotient in Mollywood films is neither undeniable nor has it gone unnoticed by other film industries. Salman-Kareena starrer Bodyguard that releases on August 31 is just one of the remakes of Malayalam films, which have been picked up in other languages.
Another one to join the race is director Aashiq Abu’s Salt n’ Pepper — a romantic comedy. It has already received remake offers in four languages with director Priyadarshan expressing interest to helm the Bollywood version.
It may be recalled here that Priyadarshan pioneered the art of remaking Malayam films to tickle the ribs of Bollywood buffs. Movies like Hera Pheri, a take-off from Ramjirao Speaking, its Malayalam version, created history of sorts and set a trend for comic movies in Bollywood. More interestingly, what followed was a series of comedy movies with Akshay Kumar that audience deem as total paisa vasool movies.
Back to the present, what is it that makes these films’ rights sell like hot cakes? Aashiq says Malayalam movies are low-budget productions, making it easier for the remakes to stick to small budgets too. He adds that the new wave of Malayalam films, especially from the younger crowd, have out-of-the-box concepts and the BO figures show that “audiences appreciate creativity.”
Another highly-successful flick Traffic, directed by Rajiv Pillai, is being remade in five languages, including Hindi and Tamil. The Bollywood version will feature Nana Patekar and Sunny Deol, while in Tamil, Kamal Haasan is eyeing the role of the movie star.
Incidentally, Traffic was inspired by a real-life incident that happened in Chennai. Stating that language is no barrier for remakes, Rajiv, who will direct the Bollywood version, says, “Their themes are unique and can be placed anywhere.”