Atreyee Poddar
Every year, in the weeks before Ganesh Chaturthi, something wonderful happens in workshops across Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka: idol makers stop reaching for the traditional mould and start reaching for a movie poster instead. Here are four franchises redesigned Bappa himself.
Baahubali
Back in 2015, sculptors began recreating the poster image of Prabhas carrying a Shiva Linga across his shoulders — and Ganpati Bappa suddenly had abs. Idol makers leaned all the way in, giving him a chiselled, warrior-king physique that had never been part of the traditional aesthetic. Even Hyderabad's famously massive Khairatabad Ganesh idol got in on the action — its turban one year was designed by the same artists behind the headgear in the Baahubali films.
KGF
Idol makers doubled down on Yash’s film’s raw intensity, with at least one Ganpati depicted gripping a heavy weapon in true KGF fashion. Not everyone was thrilled — some devotees felt pairing Bappa with a gangster-style antihero was a step too far — but there's no denying it was one of the most talked-about idol trends of its year.
Pushpa
Pushpa's now-legendary hand-under-the-chin gesture started popping up on Ganesh idols dressed in a simple white kurta-pyjama, mirroring the character's signature working-class swagger down to the smallest detail. When Pushpa 2 dropped its viral Sooseki song, a fan in Visakhapatnam built an entire idol striking the track's now-iconic couple-dance pose.
Kantara
Kantara took a different, more spiritually resonant route. Rather than copying a pose, one idol artist styled Ganesha in the Panjurli Daiva aesthetic central to Rishab Shetty's film — drawing a direct line between the folk-deity mythology at the heart of Kantara and the festival's own devotional roots. Videos of the idol went viral, striking a chord with fans who saw it less as a gimmick and more as a genuinely thoughtful crossover between two forms of worship.