Indian cinema has been trying to build a superhero universe for fifteen years. The attempts have mostly been announced at press conferences, budgeted at enormous numbers, and then quietly not made.
Malayalam cinema, which was not invited to that conversation, went ahead and built one.
Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra is produced by Dulquer Salmaan and stars Kalyani Priyadarshan alongside Naslen. The Hollywood Reporter India reported Salmaan revealing Malayalam cinema’s first female superhero with the project, and reported the film’s positioning as the opening chapter of a superhero universe.
The outcome was well beyond expectations. Gulf News reported Salmaan saying he expected the film to sink, and described it instead exploding into a monster hit. The same outlet reported the film outperforming much bigger-budgeted Hindi releases in the same window.
The film held the all-time Malayalam box office record until Bethlehem Kudumba Unit overtook it in September 2026, which is itself a measure of how big it got.
It was not without controversy. Gulf News reported Salmaan issuing an apology over a scene in the film that drew objection.
The Indian superhero problem has always been one of tone. Attempts either imported the American register wholesale, which read as imitation, or tried to graft superpowers onto a masala template, which read as confused.
Malayalam cinema’s advantage here is specific: it has a deep tradition of rooting the fantastical in the ordinary. The films that have travelled best from Kerala in the last decade have generally been ones where something extraordinary happens to recognisably normal people in recognisably normal places.
Applying that instinct to a superhero origin story, and building it around a female lead rather than the default, gave Lokah something the bigger attempts did not have: a reason to exist beyond wanting a franchise.
Confirmed: Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra is produced by Dulquer Salmaan; Kalyani Priyadarshan plays the lead, described as Malayalam cinema’s first female superhero; Naslen is in the cast; the film was positioned as the opening chapter of a planned superhero universe; it became a major commercial success and held the all-time Malayalam record until Bethlehem Kudumba Unit passed it; Salmaan publicly apologised over a scene that drew objection.
Not confirmed: production budget, release timing of further chapters, and the full shape of the planned universe.
There is a lesson here that the rest of Indian cinema is unlikely to learn, which is that universes are built from films, not from announcements. Lokah exists as a franchise because chapter one worked as a standalone film first.
The female lead point is not incidental either. Indian commercial cinema’s structural resistance to putting a woman at the centre of a large genre film is well documented and expensive, in the sense that it has cost the industry an enormous amount of untapped audience. A Malayalam production with a female superhero outgrossing bigger Hindi films in the same window is a data point that is hard to argue with.
And for Dulquer Salmaan specifically, this consolidates a shift from star to producer with genuine taste, which is a rarer and more valuable thing.
On the controversy: a producer publicly apologising for a scene is not a common occurrence in Indian cinema, where the default response to objection is usually silence or defiance. Salmaan’s apology was reported at the time and is part of the film’s record.
On the universe: chapter one succeeded, which funds chapter two. The harder question is whether Malayalam cinema’s production economics can support the escalating budgets a superhero universe demands without losing the grounded quality that made the first film work.
That tension, between scale and the thing that made you good, is exactly the trap other Indian industries have walked into. Kerala has a better track record of avoiding it than most.
BENGALURU BAATH TAKE
The funniest part of this story is that it got done while much bigger industries were still workshopping their universe announcements. Malayalam cinema does not have the budgets, the star economics or the marketing spend, and it built the thing anyway, with a woman at the centre of it, on an instinct that the extraordinary lands harder when it happens to ordinary people. We are watching chapter two with genuine interest and mild anxiety, because the moment a Malayalam franchise starts chasing scale is the moment it risks becoming everything it beat. Please do not. Stay weird, stay grounded, keep winning.
SOURCES & VERIFICATION
Verification status: CONFIRMED · Independent confirming sources: 5
- 1. The Hollywood Reporter India — https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/features/insight/dulquer-salmaan-reveals-malayalam-cinemas-first-female-superhero-in-lokaah
Confirms: Dulquer Salmaan revealing Malayalam cinema’s first female superhero in Lokah. - 2. The Hollywood Reporter India (production) — https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/features/insight/lokah-dulquer-salmaan-to-produce-superhero-film-starring-kalyani-priyadarshan-naslen
Confirms: Salmaan producing the superhero film starring Kalyani Priyadarshan and Naslen. - 3. Gulf News — https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/dulquer-salmaan-expected-lokah-to-sink-but-kalyani-priyadarshan-superhero-film-exploded-into-monster-hit-1.500270861
Confirms: Salmaan’s stated expectation that the film would fail, and its actual commercial performance. - 4. Wikipedia — Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokah_Chapter_1:_Chandra
Confirms: Compiled credits, production details and box office record. - 5. Gulf News (apology) — https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/why-did-dulquer-salmaan-apologise-for-a-controversial-scene-in-kalyani-priyadarshans-lokah-chapter-one-chandra-1.500254202
Confirms: Salmaan’s public apology over a scene in the film.
