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Mirroring The Industry: A dull first half for Bollywood on content as well as revenue front
This is the worst state that the Hindi film industry has ever been in, probably on par with the era of back to back revenge saga's in 80s. But why? Pinkvilla debates.
Among the multiple film industries that exist in India, it’s only Bollywood that’s far off from standing on its own feet. While the Tamil Film Industry tasted success in January with Master, the Telugu industry has been on a rampage with multiple blockbuster releases over the last four months. The Malayalam industry too has taken tiny steps to recovery, and it’s just the Hindi film industry that has followed the wait and watch game. The first half of 2021 was practically a no show, with only the Janhvi Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao and Varun Sharma fronted horror comedy, Roohi, taking the brave move of being the first to arrive in the cinema halls and selling respectable number of tickets.
Though the movie was far off from doing what it would have in the pre-covid times, it did take the tiny steps and laid foundation for the bigger elephant to dominate. It’s the highest grossing Hindi film in the pandemic times, earning near about Rs 25 crore at the domestic box-office, faring better than a rather big film like Mumbai Saga with John Abraham and Emraan Hashmi. However, the release of these 2 films followed by Parineeti Chopra’s Saina was followed by a lockdown in multiple states due to the second wave of Covid-19 and it was all back to square one. Over the last one year, the revenues have dried down for the cinema halls, in-fact, the collective net figure in the domestic belts for Hindi films would be lower than Rs 100 crore. It speaks volumes about the status of the industry at the moment.
Messy stuff is being put out in the name of massy cinema, whereas comedies have just gone frivolous. Half baked products based on real life stories are released with the idea of bankrolling on the sentimental values, whereas edgy and real content more often than not belongs to a world that doesn’t exist
Pinkvilla
We probably wasted far too much of a time in the first quarter of 2021 to observe the “behavior pattern” of the audience, as the low case count would have enabled the cycle to start again in January with an event release like Sooryavanshi, 83 or even Radhe for that matter, which eventually opted for a direct to digital release. Retrospectively, the digital release of Radhe on Pay Per View too seems like a mistake from the makers, as it comes across as an attempt in isolation to push ZeePlex over anything else. With the second wave settling down, it’s time for the industry to click on the reset button and announce a slate of releases as soon as cinema halls across the country are operational. There is fear, but there is also anticipation to experience an event film on the big screen. And there will always be the first to arrive benefit. Right now, the industry is on ventilator and one needs someone to pump in the oxygen in the dead veins of the industry. It's probably Akshay Kumar, who will do it with the Rohit Shetty directed Sooryavanshi followed by his frequent flow of releases through the year.
The poor run at the box-office aside, the industry is also hit by the syndrome of churning out poor content. With cinema halls being shut, one expects to witness good content from Bollywood on the OTT platforms, however, it has been a no-show even in the digital world. A couple of exceptions aside, all Hindi films that took the direct to digital route were nothing but poor on the content front, and this is when the other industries and modes of entertainment came out with decent to good content. Messy stuff is being put out in the name of massy cinema, whereas comedies have just gone frivolous. Half baked products based on real life stories are released with the idea of bankrolling on the sentimental values, whereas edgy and real content more often than not belongs to a world that doesn’t exist in a civilized society. And what's worse? The edgy content is far off from being engrossing too.
There is fear, but there is also anticipation to experience an event film on the big screen...Right now, the industry is on ventilator and one needs someone to pump in the oxygen in the dead veins of the industry.
Pinkvilla
This is the worst state that the Hindi film industry has ever been in, probably on par with the era of revenge saga's in 80s. However, back in the 80s, the industry was certainly transparent and brave enough to accept the flaws, and reinvent towards the end of decade, but in today’s time and age, criticism is often taken with a pinch of salt and the industry often finds an agenda behind any opinion. There’s a defense mechanism ready to safeguard the interests of the stakeholders and create a bubble of acceptance around them in case of a failure. Let’s hope that the B-Town analyses areas of errors and comes back stronger than ever before creating genuinely good content and not just rehashing the material from other industries and reliving the old days of glory. It’s now or never. It’s time to unite and churn out content that is exciting and ends the lull period at the box-office.
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