By Surendra Bhatia
Time flies, months run into each other and even while it looks like year 2019 has just started, we are already into the seventh month, discussing the probable fate of two films scheduled to release on Independence Day. Before that discussion turns into reality, eyes will already be turned on Diwali releases and the year-end, and we’ll be in 2020, possibly out of breath.
With half a year over, the Bollywood report card is mixed. As expectations are not pinned high in Bollywood, there’s much comfort in the fact that the previous six months have seen two huge hits, Uri – The Surgical Strike and Kabir Singh. However, it must be qualified that both these films are blockbusters, also in relation to their budgets: Uri pulled in about Rs. 250 crore on a budget of Rs. 35 crore, and Kabir Singh is inching towards the Rs. 300-crore mark on a slightly higher budget; even if it doesn’t get there, it’s done well enough to spread cheer in the film industry. But what might not evoke much cheer is the fact that Hollywood’s Avengers: Endgame is clearly the biggest hit in India in the last six months, drawing more than Rs. 375 crore at the box-office.
Bollywood has now no choice but to factor in Hollywood blockbusters into its release plans. When hugely anticipated films like Avengers, Fast And Furious, The Lion King drop down on the release calendar, it is but natural that Bollywood would get panic attacks and scatter in fear. Despite being insulated from foreign films the longest, the domestic film market is finally getting integrated into the world market. Now, when a Hollywood franchise film is seen coming, all filmmakers here know that there would be no respite from it for about two weeks’ running time in cinemas. It has become as simple as that. Earlier, Hollywood films that conquered the world would stutter and stumble in Indian cinemas, drawing just a small niche audience. Now, the niche has become the norm, and audiences have grown, going by box-office numbers, at times bigger than for Hindi films.
It’s a price to pay for the world becoming smaller and more accessible to even rural India. When governments focus on digitisation and electrification, and build metros and bullet trains, distances become shorter and the world comes closer to the nose. India is at the cusp of rapid growth and that upward trajectory brings people face-to-face with much of what they earlier considered alien or unattainable. Now, thanks to easy access to the Internet, nothing is seen as alien anymore, except maybe to the superannuated generation. Bollywood has a choice, to join in and fight it out or stick to its ancient formula and die a quiet death.
Fortunately, the Hindi film industry has woken up and is willing to make a go of it. Bollywood is suddenly in a mood to explore new narratives and is willing to put in good money on new ideas. Gully Boy is, for instance, not exactly a subject that Bollywood would have invested in, a decade back, but it does so now and it paid off handsomely. Similarly, films like The Tashkent Files, Uri – The Surgical Strike and Kesari couldn’t have been easy options to film. But the producers dared, and the films worked. The fact that Bollywood is now on a spree of making biopics is another heartening sign. Till very recently, Hindi filmmakers would not touch a film on Indian cricket team’s 1983 World Cup campaign because the subject would entail too much work, to write and to film. A film on even Mahatma Gandhi did not have too many backers because it was seen as a subject that would require an enormous amount of work. But not any longer! Now, filmmakers are searching for real-life subjects that live in audiences’ memories; it’s now a USP… hard work be damned.
It may not look like it but in the new digitally-connected world that is getting created in India, lie huge opportunities for Bollywood. If a lot of foreign content is getting consumed in India, Bollywood has the chance to become a regular on the entertainment plate of foreign consumers. It may not be easy but Bollywood has intrinsic strengths that can help popularise it abroad: strong identification, for one. The joie de vivre that is typical of Bollwood films is unique in the world of cinema – a smile lights up faces of foreigners when they catch an Indian film or hear a Hindi film song. That’s a big draw, especially in a world so melancholic and dark… But smaller fights have to be fought first. The first part of 2019 has not been bad for Bollywood but only because expectations are not set very high. The flop films are the majority. Hits are too few and never more than the count on fingers. That needs to change. If not hits, the majority of films need to at least get to the break even point. Maybe, down the road to the end of the year, the festive second half would throw up more comforting numbers – more hits and fewer flops. That would truly mark the growing up of Hindi cinema.
