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Comparisons are odious but sometimes, they are also inevitable. Let’s take a look at the hits, super-hits and blockbusters of year 2019 and compare them with what Bollywood got in 2020.
War was the biggest Hindi blockbuster of 2019 but little did Bollywood know then that in 2020, Bollywood would be struggling to get back on its feet as the world waged a War against the virus that brought it to a standstill for months on end. If Hollywood films were also considered, as they should, it was Avengers: Endgame which was the biggest blockbuster of 2019 with its Rs. 372-crore total (across languages) at the Indian box-office. In fact, War and Avengers: Endgame were the only two films which joined the Rs. 300-crore club in 2019. Again, Bollywood could do precious little through 2020 except wait for the endgame of the medical fraternity to end the game of the dreaded coronavirus.
Actually, year 2019 started with a bang as blockbuster Uri – The Surgical Strike released in the second week of January. But the only surgical strike Bollywood was interested in throughout the nine months of 2020 was the one against COVID-19.
February 2019 threw up two success stories, Gully Boy and Total Dhamaal. The only dhamaal that happened in 2020 was when Total Dhamaal hero Ajay Devgan’s Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior hit the screens on January 10, 2020. After that, Bollywood, burdened by the lockdown and the mounting losses, could only take solace in the Gully Boy anthem, Apna time aayega. Nine months later, the Hindi film industry is still humming the same three magical words even as OTT platforms are having all the dhamaal. Or are they?
March 2019 belonged to Kesari, Luka Chuppi and Badla. Needless to add, once the cinemas reopened post-lockdown, the audience played luka chuppi with the film industry, fighting shy of venturing to the cinemas because of the COVID fear. Initially, the exhibition sector, mainly the national multiplex chains, threatened to avenge the insult heaped on cinemas by some brave producers who decided to premiere their films on OTT platforms rather than wait for the lockdown to be lifted, but eventually, even the cinemas’ bhavna of badla died down as they realised that everybody had the right to look after his own interest. However, the kesari party — Shiv Sena — is still swearing revenge against Uttar Pradesh chief minsiter Yogi Adityanath for daring to say that he would do all it takes to relocate Bollywood to his state by building a world-class film city in NOIDA.
In April 2019, it was the small The Tashkent Files which surprised everyone with both, the acclaim and the box-office collections. The only Files Bollywood’s countless fans were interested in in 2020 were those relating to the untimely death of Sushant Singh Rajput. The alleged suicide was given the colour of murder but despite arduous investigations by the Bombay Police and later by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Files are still open.
Just like De De Pyaar De fell short of Rs. 5 crore to join the Rs. 100-crore club in the month of May 2019, most of the films premiered on streaming platforms fell short of expectations and failed to entertain the audiences in their homes. In other words, despite reaching right into their homes, the films begged “De de pyaar de” but the OTT audiences didn’t oblige because most of those films were outright bad.
June 2019 gave Bollywood a blockbuster in Kabir Singh. Like the hero in the South remake endeared himself to the audience despite his drug addiction, Bollywood celebrities continued to endear themselves to the public in spite of allegations against them, of drug abuse. There was a small section of the audience which had gone hammer and tongs against the film when it was released, saying that it sent out the wrong message to the gullible audience as the heroine accepted the hero despite his violent and abusive ways. Similarly, there was a tiny section of Bollywood, which tried its best to brainwash people into believing that all of Bollywood was bad. Thankfully for Bollywood, the public was smarter than the tiny section thought! Article 15 was another success story of June 2019. After June 2020, Bollywood celebrities did become like outcastes who were probably worse off than the lower caste people shown at the receiving end in Article 15.
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Super 30 was the super film of July 2019. As against 2019’s Super 30, we had the Super 34 (top producers, besides four leading film trade associations) who filed a case in the Delhi high court against some TV news channels for showing Bollywood in bad light in their coloured coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
For Mission Mangal in August 2019, it was Mission-Bolllywood-Is-Bad for the electronic media in the country in 2020 and for the handful of disgruntled and thankless people who owe their very identity to this industry but made that their mission too. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was the mission of the frustrated few that prompted the TV channels to adopt it as theirs too! However, the initial ignominy which Bollywood had to face gave way to the ultimate Bollywood-mein-sab-kushal-mangal-hai feeling once the orchestrated Mission lost steam.
Dream Girl and Chhichhore were the dream runners in September 2019. However, for Rhea Chakraborty, the Girl friend of the Chhichhore star, Sushant Singh Rajput, the month of September 2020 was the nightmare of her life as she was imprisoned in the drugs case related to the demise of Rajput. As traumatic as Rhea’s jail term were the antics of the chhichhore media persons who pronounced their ‘guilty’ verdict in her case — without evidence, of course!
As mentioned above, War was not just the biggest Hindi blockbuster of October 2019 but also of that entire year! Housefull 4 was another success story of the Diwali month. However, in October 2020, cinema owners struggled to reopen their multiplexes and single-screen cinemas after remaining shut for seven months of the lockdown, hoping for the bare minimum footfalls, leave alone Housefull shows. That’s because the War against the coronavirus had not been won. That’s also because, as some would like to believe, Bollywood had lost the War against OTT platforms. But only time will prove that the Housefull boards will adorn cinema halls once again when big-budget, star-studded extravaganzas arrive in the cinema halls.
In November 2019, Bala shone at the ticket windows like a bald pate massaged with oil. Like sustaining his marriage with Yami Gautam was a hair-raising experience for hero Ayushmann Khurrana in the hit film, keeping the cinemas operational in November 2020 was an equally hair-raising experience. After all, there were no worthwhile films to screen and hence no audiences willing to come to the cinemas. Or was it the other way round? Like Marjaavaan and Commando 3, which were the other November 2019 success stories, many cinemas contemplated closure as they sighed amidst horrendously poor box-office collections, “Marjaavaan!” Those who still showed grit and kept the show going were like Commandos who never give up.
Frankly, such brave cinemas, which have exemplified the philosophy of the film industry that the show must go on, were the Mard of the exhibition sector, much like Rani Mukerji was in Mardaani 2, the hit release of December 2019. Good Newwz and Pati Patni Aur Woh were also the hits of the last month of 2019. But in 2020, even as the film industry waited with bated breath for the public to return to the cinemas, Good News of any kind eluded it. Rather, points like VPF (Virtual Print Fee), revenue-sharing ratio, reduction of the exclusive cinema window, etc. brought to the fore the simmering tensions between the production/distribution and exhibition sectors. They are like the proverbial husband-wife team — can’t stay without each other, can’t tolerate each other. Pati Patni Aur Woe!