Behind the glamour and glitz of Bollywood is the Hindi film industry. It churns out 350-400 films a year. Most go unnoticed and do not recover their costs. Some quality movies get very limited releases but then hopefully a fresh lease of life on the streaming OTT platforms. A few do well in the C & D centres. A significant data point is that there are only 6,700 single screens + around 2,400 multiplex screens in India for 1,600+ films a year, compared to the 40,000 in the US and 55,000 in China.

With the Mumbai film world also in a lockdown, let’s look at how the real business works. Brush aside the myths and make-believe narrative about the mega-stars and the celebrity film makers. After all, these are tales spun by PR agents, TV anchors, critics and trade people on their pay-roll. Social media facilitators take the hype and hero-worship to another level.

Glorify, hype, manipulate, seduce, deflect, misinform are all tricks of the trade. Add snuff- out competition.

The big production houses, superstars, media outlets and the social media apparatus have together created powerful cabals which dominate B-Town.

Let’s look at some real numbers. Sushant Singh Rajput’s Chhichhore grossed ₹ 200+ crore last year on a budget of ₹ 45 crore. It managed to get a 1200 screen release in September last year and the audience lapped up the content. Uri-the Surgical Strike, with Vicky (who??) Kaushal in the lead, garnered ₹ 245 crore in domestic collections alone, on a budget of ₹ 25 crore only.  Again a 1200 screen opening. A smash hit, wouldn’t you say. The chatter media has largely kept quiet, even played it down.

Salman bhai’s magnum opus Bharat, has a 2,000 plus screen grand release. Just touches ₹ 200 crore with inflated ticket prices at the multiplexes. Production costs are touted at ₹ 80 crore. But it is the time to go ga-ga. This is the tried and tested formula for Mr BO. His films come out on a major festival which along with week-end gives it a 7 day free run with no competition to speak off. His die-hard fans plus the holiday mood kicks in. All the moolah is raked in over the first week. Then it is all down-hill.  The average cine-goer forgets the movie as soon as he/she steps out of the theatre. Tubelight and Dabangg 3 have flickered briefly and flopped. No industry insider dares to say so. The Sultan continues to walk with a swag.

Take the case of King Khan. A disappointing run for the last 6-7 years but his stardom has not dimmed. A few average movies and some big duds. Remember Zero. Fades in comparison to Kamal Hassan’s Appu Raja and AB’s Paa. A critic for a leading paper panned it with a 1 star rating. But couldn’t resist saying that it was not worthy of the SRK talent. I naively thought that he had the clout to command scripts, choose directors and co-stars… In fact the works. Mainstream actors like Matt Damon and Tom Hanks use their stardom to get better projects and quality content. Jab Harry met Sejal was a disaster. The critic in another leading English paper drooled, “SRK is like old wine. The more he matures, the better he romances.” Are these guys made of Teflon? Nothing sticks to them. Is it too much to hope for a Swades again!!!

You can now see why we wallow in such mediocrity. The eco-system pampers the stars and the so-called show-men. There is no reality check. The camp culture keeps them in a comfort zone. They have become lazy and repetitive and are taking all of us for granted.

Only politicians and movie stars get away with such trash in India. A 2 time world cup winning captain like Dhoni is asked if he is past his shelf life. Take another analogy. Will investors be gung-ho about a corporate which has given average or negative results over the last 12 quarters.

Let’s move on to the accomplices- like celebrity critics Rajeev Masand & Anupama Chopra, whose bias and fandom is there for all to see. Fortunately, independent You Tube reviewers and Netizens are pushing back and calling a spade a spade. Both these big names refused to review a significant film, The Tashkent Files presumably as the filmmaker is a BJP supporter.  Based on a validated expose of how from the late 50’s the KGB had infiltrated and possibly compromised people at the highest levels of the Indian government, academia, media and even the film fraternity. It was this stuff which was difficult for their ideological gut to digest. And the mystery of Shastriji’s death was too much to handle.

The A-list filmmaker, husband of one of these reviewers released Shikara on the streaming platform, billed as ‘the Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits’. Sadly the story remains untold. The film makes little mention of the genocide, violence and rape which led to the exodus of half a million of this community from their centuries old homes. If anything, more screen time is given to justifying the cause of the militants- funded and armed by our ever friendly neighbour State.

A few more examples- Tanhaji (₹ 200 crore club) was treated by these intellectuals with some disdain. A Maratha warrior taking on the Emperor Aurangzeb. Really? Research and history be damned. Ajay Devgns third film on unsung Indian heroes may calm their nerves. It celebrates the great football coach- Syed Abdul Rahim- and the golden period of Indian football from 1952-62. I look forward to this homage to a sporting icon.

Akshay Kumar’s terrific run at the box-office is shrugged away as hyper-nationalism.  Mission Mangal, Kesari and Airlift are inspiring, true stories and make for good cinema. I recall that their take on Uri was punctuated with the word ‘Jingoism’.

Bollywood is loath to admit the superior quality of films from other regions, esp. the South and Maharashtra in recent times. More movie buffs are discovering the same on Netflix or Prime. Consider Kumbalangi Nights and Virus (Malyalam), Super-Deluxe (Tamil) or  Tumbbad (Marathi). They ooze with creativity and story-telling.

The Hindi films award shows are a farce.  Gully Boy getting ten! LOL!  An engaging film. Not an all-time classic. Think of the opportunity missed in hailing some real actors and technicians. It must be great to belong to this close-knit clique.

Their inflated egoes will never acknowledge the biggest box-office bonanzas which have been helmed at other centres. Bahubali 2 tops the India box office with a staggering ₹ 1400 crore collection. Surprise, Surprise-its Hindi version topped ₹ 570 crore. Rajnikanth’s 2.0 follows with ₹ 564 crore (multiple language release). Then Dangal with ₹ 538 crore and Bahubali – the Beginning at ₹ 516 crore. KGF (Kannada) scored a BO century on home turf itself. Sairat (Marathi) made at a modest ₹ 6-7 crore breached the historic ₹ 100 crore mark. It was immediately remade in Hindi with star kids.

Global BO numbers of Hindi films are largely driven by the Indian diaspora. Very few have made the cross-over and resonated with foreign audiences. Dangal has smashed records in China pulling in over ₹ 1,000 crore. Earlier 3 Idiots had really connected with audiences in South Korea, China, Japan & South East Asia.  Secret Superstar (made for ₹ 15 crore) had an India score of ₹ 75 crore and a China tally of ₹ 750 crore.  Andhadhun also hit the ₹ 300 crore jackpot in China. But this also is not trumpeted in the media domain.

The Bollywood kitty of the world box-office revenue of $40 billion is just under 5%.

Some earlier films to make the breakthrough were Awara & Shree 420 ( Soviet Union & China), Mughal-e-Azam,  Naya Daur,  Anand, Sholay, Deewar, Trishul, DDLJ, Lagaan, My Name is Khan…..Disco-Dancer had Russians and East Europeans dancing to its tunes. Rajni’s Muthu touched the hearts of the Japanese. Satyajit Ray’s films created a loyal, niche audience especially in Europe.

Let’s turn the clock back for another interesting take. How much would the blockbusters of yesteryears taken at the ticket counters today. An eye-opener for today’s movie nut clued into the ₹100/200/300 crore clubs instituted by the trade people. Adjusted for inflation, Sholay and Mughal-e-Azam would probably rub shoulders with Bahubali and Dangal in the ₹ 2,000 crore stratosphere. Mother India would have set the cash registers ringing for say ₹1,300 crore. Awara would be in the ₹ 1,000 crore club. Mass entertainers like Johnny Mera Naam, Amar Akbar Anthony & Disco Dancer would have crossed the ₹ 700 crore mark. To be fair, DDLJ and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun would also have pole vaulted into the ₹ 1,000 crore collection zone in today’s times. But the perspective to take here is that Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan would have featured in the top grosser list many times over. (These are estimate numbers sourced from articles on the internet by cinephiles, journalists and pundits.)

Those were also times when this abject sycophancy did not exist. Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker was called out as a flop. In contrast SRK’s ambitious Ra-One was quietly laid to rest. In the mid-70’s itself Rajesh Khanna was being discussed as a super-star in decline. I recall reading in a popular magazine that his mannerisms had become stale. Indeed, trade papers and critics had dismissed the multi-starrer Sholay as a dud in its first week itself. They had to eat their words for the next 5 years and more.

Till the end of the seventees it was not all about the stars. Technicians were given their due. DOP’s like Dwarka Divecha and Fali Mistry were feted and lauded. Musicians and lyricists had their names on hoardings and posters. The legendary singers-Mohd Rafi & Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar & Asha Bhonsle…. could pack concert halls on their own. Today they piggyback on a star tour. Everybody had their place in the sun- the directors, character actors, editors, choreographers, production designers.

The raw business truth is that today it is the distributor and exhibitor who are taking the real risk. The star packaged product is sold out to all the 11 territories by the big production house. Plus they rake in the big bucks from the overseas markets, the music rights and deals made with other media and streaming outlets.

Finally, it is upto the audience to demand better value for money. The success of Andhadhun, Chhichhore, Uri, and Article 15 shows that there is a large and growing market for good content films. The distributors and exhibitors should wake up to the fact that this involves lesser risks and higher margins and ROI. More screens and shows is the only way for good talent to show what they are capable of.  The creative juices will then really flow in the Mumbai film world. A good story, well told, will carry the day.

The show must go on. But it is high time that we as consumers call for a more fulfilling experience.