As 2022 draws to a close, the Hindi film industry has suffered yet another colossal setback, its final blow for this year. Its most prolific and consistently successful director, Rohit Shetty, has delivered a dead-on-arrival Cirkus, ringing in more despair than hope for an already beleaguered Bollywood as it enters 2023.
Back in September, just before the release of Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra: Part One—Shiva, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap told me how much he wanted the film to strike the elusive gold at the box office. “I prayed for its success even in my dreams,” he said, “One successful tentpole film brings confidence and sets the money in circulation within the industry for all kinds of movies to get made, including my own,” he said.
Brahmastra did bring in some much-needed relief to Bollywood, raking in Rs 306 crore gross as per Mumbai-based media consulting firm Ormax Media’s October box office report. However, the film’s moderate success was an exception rather than the rule in 2022 that has mostly been about much-touted films, riding on big stars and bigger budgets, failing to bring audiences to the theatres.
This, after a historic high in 2019 when the gross box office receipts in India (for films across all languages, including Hollywood) had broken the Rs 10,000 crore mark, as per Ormax Media. Hindi films had led with a 44% share of gross domestic box office, Hollywood (in all dubbed language versions) stood second with 15%, followed by Tamil and Telugu films, at 13% each.
In stark contrast, barely five Hindi films in 2022, apart from Brahmastra, fared well: The Kashmir Files, Drishyam 2, Gangubai Kathiawadi and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 with Jugjugg Jeeyo touted as a decent earner. “These have been the odd ones out amid below-par performers. The lean patch is continuing,” said Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO, Ormax Media. Lucrative deals through premieres on streaming platforms that helped producers make partial recovery during the pandemic also crashed with films not getting sold as easily.
Movie-watching culture in India has been driven by the top stars, with their loyal fans queuing up on the ‘first day, first show’ and the first weekend driving the bulk of the business. “Openings of most big stars have dropped to 40-60% of their pre-pandemic openings, indicating that star power is diminishing,” said Kapoor. They are not necessarily ensuring hits despite accounting for 30-40% of a film’s cost. “They have devalued themselves. They have lost the magic and the mystique by being desperate for attention on social media,” said TV producer, director, and author Nasreen Munni Kabir. “The stars in the South don’t flaunt wealth, cars, or fashion. They live for their films. In Bollywood, stars have turned even coming out of the airport into content [uploaded on social media],” said filmmaker Vasan Bala.
Bollywood has also had to contend with a tough challenge from South cinema. 37% of the Hindi box office in 2022 was generated through Hindi dubbed versions of Telugu, Tamil & Kannada language films. The biggest hit in 2022 is the Kannada film KGF: Chapter 2, amassing an eye-popping Rs 970 crore at the domestic box office in all the versions, followed by Telugu RRR at Rs 869 crore, Kannada Kantara with Rs 346 crore and Tamil Ponniyin Selvan: PS I with Rs 323 crore. Hindi cinema comes way down at the fifth spot with Brahmastra.
Hollywood has been a tough challenger too. This year, films like Top Gun Maverick, Dr Strange in Multiverse of Madness, The Batman, and Avatar: The Way of the Water fared better than many big Hindi releases.
There have been some practical constraints to film viewing as well. Going out to watch films regularly as a family is financially unviable now. The National Cinema Day observed in India in September when film tickets were sold across the country for Rs 75 met with success for this reason. However, this was a one-off event, not profitable enough to be hosted regularly.
Meanwhile, in the two years of the pandemic, the stay-at-home consumer, discovering better content online, has become spoilt for choice and more demanding. According to columnist, author, MD and CEO of Future Brands, Santosh Desai, there has been a disruption in Hindi cinema’s connection with the middle class, family audiences, and the masses. “The element of surprise has gone from Hindi cinema. The audience can write the script of most of the films it sees,” said Kabir.
Bans, too, emerged as a bane. Timed with the Laal Singh Chaddha release, #BoycottAamir began to trend on Twitter. The first big film of 2023, Pathaan, faces music over a song. “Political dialogue is infecting the social and artistic sphere,” said Desai. The backlash against the industry has also been growing since the death by suicide case of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in 2020.
A lot of good actors, directors and writers are moving to stream platforms that are green-lighting fresher content. However, according to filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee, the OTT revolution is not about the revival of meaningful content or the freedom of expression but about survival, catching eyeballs, and creating addiction; the focus is on binge-watching. His own Netflix original Tees is stuck in limbo because of the platform’s worries about how it might be received in the current socio-political situation in India.
Many feel that the Bollywood bubble had to burst one day. Still, they are hopeful for a change for the better with a systemic re-haul and radical makeover that involves rationalising budgets, reorienting the star system, giving scriptwriters their due, focussing on content, selling it at a reasonable price to maximise returns, and also a correction in ticket pricing. “There will be a degree of trial and error, but Bollywood needs to put out a lot of content of all kinds and with varied marketing strategies,” said film distributor and exhibitor Akshaye Rathi. “It’s not about one push, one day, one scene, one dialogue, one film. It’s a Leviathan we are up against,” said screenwriter Atika Chohan, looking ahead at 2023, adding, “Bollywood will have to embrace a new normal.” Will it, though?
Namrata Joshi
Consulting Editor
namroo@gmail.com.