They said, Bollywood was dead. In the aftermath of Sushant Singh Rajput’s unfortunate demise, critics of the largest film industry in the world lost no time in writing its obituary. The doctored bad press, which the Hindi film industry got when investigations into Sushant Singh Rajput’s alleged suicide were underway, had many among the public joining the bandwagon to predict doomsday for the very industry which had entertained them for years and decades.
Of course, there was no basis for passing such harsh judgements on the future of Bollywood but when some insiders, who earned their bread, butter and jam from this very industry, themselves started a paint-Bollywood-black campaign, the terrible predictions gained momentum.
It is against the backdrop of such horror stories about Bollywood that Sooryavanshi was released today in cinemas. It is the first major all-India release after a gap of 19 months which saw two COVID-19-induced lockdowns and the film trade suffering huge losses due to the shutdowns. There was excitement and hope that the industry would bounce back with Rohit Shetty’s film which, incidentally, would’ve released in March last year had it not been for the first lockdown. But there was a lot of apprehension too. Would the public return to the cinemas after the bad press received by Bollywood? They called our stars drug addicts, rapists and murderers. They called our screen heroes and heroines real-life villains and vamps. Would people now come to watch the same heroes and heroines on the big screen? And what about the tough opposition posed by the OTT platforms? With so many films having been premiered on OTT during these 19 months, was the public now prepared to venture out of their homes even while the fear of contracting the Coronavirus was still lurking? The anti-Bollywood brigade predicted terrible times for the industry on this count too, explaining that people had become habituated to watching films in the comforts of their homes and hence would not return to the cinemas.
The phenomenal public response to the film on the first day gives an indication that although the pessimists were shouting from the rooftops, making it appear that their numbers were high, it was actually only their volume which was high. Their numbers were actually insignificant. Just imagine, they were basing their predictions not on any findings but on the rants of some frustrated souls in the industry who had an axe to grind with the successful people of the same industry. Today must be a terrible day in the lives of all such frustrated souls (including the handful of industry people who led this finish-Bollywood campaign) because despite all their efforts to denigrate Bollywood, it has bounced back and how!
Whether the first day of Sooryavanshi closes at Rs. 25 crore or 30 crore is not the issue. The fact that it has brought back the audiences to the cinemas in such a big way is the underlying point. The fact that the day’s total for Sooryavanshi in PVR properties is expected to exceed the first day’s total for Housefull 4 in the same multiplex chain’s properties, which was also released on Diwali (of 2019), is enough reason to celebrate the bounce-back of Bollywood. And yes, just in case, those negative people wonder what is so exhilarating about Rs. 25 or 30 crore, they need to be informed that this figure assumes a lot of significance because cinemas in several states are still not allowed to function at full capacity, and the fear of the Coronavirus still exists among many people, who, therefore, refuse to leave the safety of their homes.