By Surendra Bhatia
Unbeknownst to Bollywood, it has set itself up for the big squeeze. On the one hand, certain Hollywood blockbusters are outpacing Bollywood films at the box-office in India, and on the other, regional films are raising their heads and impudently dominating their domestic regions, further restricting the space for Bollywood films. The pincer movement is closing in in earnest, and the breathing space for Bollywood can only get claustrophobic.
Both are not entirely new phenomena. The periodic blanket domination of Hollywood blockbusters in the Indian film market has been evident since a few years, especially with releases of franchise films like Fast And Furious, Avengers, Terminator and Disney animation films like The Lion King. In fact, the domination is so complete that Bollywood producers run for cover when such films are up for release, abdicating their domestic throne without even putting up a fight. Regional films, too, pack a punch way above their weight but only occasionally. Once in a while, a Marathi Sairaat or a Gujarati Chaal Jeevi Laiye! comes along and cinemas in that region are not easily available to Bollywood films for a few weeks, making it difficult for a Hindi film to release optimally. But such instances are the exceptions and not the norm.
However, in recent months, three regional films have played to incredibly packed houses in their home regions, creating a surge of support in cinemas, and have pulled in enviable collections, enviable even for Bollywood.
The Assam film industry is known for throwing up quality films but the latest from the stable has gone way beyond the earlier ones. Zubeen Garg’s Kanchanjangha, released in early September, has been a runaway success. In cinemas in Assam, where Hindi films collect about Rs. 1 lakh in a week’s run, Kanchanjangha pulled in Rs. 1 lakh on the opening day! That is how it managed Rs. 40 lakh in Assam on the first day and a like amount on the second day. The territory of Assam is minuscule, estimated to be around 1% of the Indian film market. If the scale of the film’s collection was applied nationwide, the opening day collection of Kanchanjangha would be Rs. 40 crore!
Incidentally, Zubeen Garg’s earlier release, Mission China, pulled in a lifetime collection of Rs. 3.60 crore, after being made on a very modest budget. Kanchanjangha has surpassed Mission China and will also be surpassing the collections of Assam’s biggest blockbuster to-date, Bahubali 2: The Conclusion (Rs. 5 crore).
Similarly, in Chhattisgarh, which has a small film industry, Chhattisgarhi film Hans Jhan Pagli Phas Jabe swept the box-office clean for weeks on end. In fact, even after more than two months of its release, it posed a tough release problem for Hindi films in the waiting, like Mission Mangal, Batla House and Saaho, denying them sufficient cinemas for their opening. Hans Jhan Pagli Phas Jabe had a budget of about Rs. 45 lakh and has already raked in over Rs. 7.5 crore and still counting.
In Punjab, Shadaa collected Rs. 29.5 crore in India, and, of course, this means mostly in Punjab, and Rs. 17.65 crore in the Overseas market! With almost Rs. 50 crore in the bag, Shadaa would qualify as one of the most successful films released in the country this year. It is also the second-biggest Punjabi blockbuster ever, next only to Carry On Jatt 2.
If the scale of their box-office collections is projected nationwide, all of these films would fall into the super-hit category, with collections of over Rs. 300 crore, maybe even Rs. 400 crore!
This is, perhaps, a question that shall never get sufficiently answered in India: if an Assamese film is such a huge hit in its region, where the language is spoken and understood, why wouldn’t it enjoy a fair amount of success if dubbed in Hindi and released nationwide, and also in South languages and played in South cinemas? Certainly, the same success of its native territory may not get replicated elsewhere but it wouldn’t be a loss either. The film has to have something special to enchant the Assamese people so greatly. The same can be said of Hans Jhan Pagli Phas Jabe and Shadaa too. The Indian film industries are surely missing a trick or two here by not dubbing and pushing these films in the Hindi market. The predictable reasons are: (1) promotion would cost too much; (2) star cast is not known to Hindi-speaking audiences; (3) scale of production would be unimpressive; and so on, all arguments heard before.
Yet, look at the films that have been doing well recently in Bollywood: Chhichhore, Dream Girl, Kabir Singh, Uri – The Surgical Strike, Article 15… these are not films that have done well because of their star cast or lavish production values or a huge promotional spend. They did well because of their content which was liked by the masses. In fact, that has always been the key, but at least now, it is becoming more obvious that content is king. Of course, it is too much to expect that audiences would become star-neutral but they have become discerning enough to patronise good films, with or without star value. This would be a perfect time to dub good regional films and present them in small doses to audiences. Some of them could fail, of course, but there are better than average chances that films like Kanchanjangha, Hans Jhan Pagli Phas Jabe and Shadaa would find adoring audiences in wider markets too.
There is, perhaps, one way in which Bollywood could demand and create more space for itself in Indian markets because the reverse is true too. As certain markets are providing bonanzas to regional language films, maybe Bollywood should release its films dubbed in those languages for those markets. It could prove to be a money-spinnong idea, as has already been proved by Hollywood which started doing extremely well with dubbed versions in the vast Indian market. Imagine Dangal or Dream Girl dubbed in local languages like Assamese or Oriya. It would be a sensation. The cost of dubbing is hardly prohibitive; and the returns could be very lucrative.
The excellent news is that regional cinemas are definitely alive and kicking. And if their growth is rapid, it would lead to a greater expansion of markets which would benefit Bollywood too. India is fortunate to have so many languages and large areas in which they are spoken. This, obviously, sets up the market for smaller regional cinemas but can also serve as fodder for quality Hindi films. The question, as ever, is about the reach… regional films reaching out to the rest of India, and Bollywood getting its charm across to those regions. This might be the only way out for Bollywood films in the future: dubbing. Bollywood producers have to dub their films in local Indian languages to expand their market and also in foreign languages to get across to the Germans, Italians, Japanese, Chinese and the others. Instead of getting squeezed, this is a way Bollywood could break out of the chakravyuha and breathe new life into its films.
