Aamir Khan probably got his current signature as a perfectionist because he was choosy with scripts and took time on each film. Having tasted success in this ‘unusual’ formula within Bollywood, unlike before where stars were booked with hoards of films, there are followers indeed.
King Khan, probably aged and Hrithik Roshan, probably too tired, seem to bend towards this trend, albeit as an excuse and not because they want to. And in Sandalwood, we now see a similar trend of few ‘signings’ of films by big stars, who used to previously sign films as soon as the script reached them.
Setting a trend towards working with just one or two movies a year is Puneeth Rajkumar, who will only start shooting for his next flick, Ninnindale in the month of May and has given dates for another film to be directed by Giriraj. Probably, the actor got busy with his popular reality show, Kannadada Kotyadhipathi.
Then we have Sudeep, whose film, Bachchan - The Angry Young Man released recently. The actor, as of now has taken up only one project; with director Yograj Bhat. On the other hand, Darshan has been signing one or two movies a year. The actor’s next flick is Bulbul which is all set to release and he is currently shooting for Brindavana, which might see light either this year end or beginning of next year.
What signs does this trend lead to? According to director Shashank, with stars getting a sustainable workload, it will only improve the quality of films. He said, "After a certain point, stars tend to go slow with movies because audience gets choosy. It becomes difficult for them to satisfy the cinegoers. Stars want big budget cinema for which production value has to be perfect and to do this, they need a lot of time. The big stars need to attend at least four months of shooting and then comes dubbing, trailers, music launch and pre-release promotions. The producer will be safe only if these factors are taken care.”
Upendra seems to have learnt from his past mistakes as he has decided to go choosy about his films. The star who had a series of films in a row and could not match the audience expectations, has not only chosen to postpone his home productions but has even decided to work only in one project to be directed by Chandru.
According to director Indrajit, actors who enter the industry, have to undergo a trial and error experiment with different kinds of films. "Once these actors become stars, the expectations of the audience will be more, which becomes tough for the stars to come up with a masterstroke and it becomes even more difficult for directors and writers too. Here the canvas becomes bigger and so is the remuneration. That's when stars reduce the number of films."
More pragmatic is director Shashank, who says that it is easy to work with newcomers. He says, "The lesser the better, as it will only increase the craze amongst the audience. When an actor reaches a certain position, his career will be at stake. For example, Darshan charges `5 crores per movie and the budget for the film will be Rs 15 crores! Only producers who have the guts and who believe in the project and subject, take up the risk. It also becomes a tough job for the director and the team. So it is better, stars stick to doing two movies a year.”