Hits and flops come and go, as they will. So do notions about Bollywood’s decline. Could the way a movie industry functions be worth a relook, if not a reset, though?
Audiences have switched to OTTs over theatres, as they had in the 1980s VHS era. Representation Pic/iStock
Bollywood’s like India’s Congress Party. Everybody holds a stake-worthy opinion on it.
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Even those who claim to hate it, wonder/worry with glee, about its deepening decline. Stats are real—for both Bolly, and erstwhile King Cong, of course.
As per Ormax (content tracking agency), 31 per cent of Hindi film revenues in 2024 came from films dubbed into Hindi—making Hyderabad a regional HQ for Hindi cinema; no?
Still, 2023 was among the best years for Bollywood (ever), with four Hindi films surpassing Rs 500 crore in theatres.
Even as Congress, often publicly cursed for its dynastism/nepotism/socialism/secularism/etc performed better than expected in 2024 general elections. Feels like a phase?
Unlike Congress, Bollywood is not a political party, with rivalling egos eyeing its eventual elimination.
Bollywood’s colloquial for Hindi cinema. Which, in turn, implies an ecosystem/infrastructure—equipment, ancillaries, trade, technicians—you can employ/hire, to make movies; in Mumbai.
Anybody can, in a field full of freelancers, entrepreneurs. There’s no barrier to entry.
Insider byword for Bollywood is “industry”. Government granted it that status in 2001. It’s furthest from it, in terms of being even vaguely organised.
There are multiple guilds/associations for each department in the Hindi film industry; homes/apartments double up as offices; personnel get told, they’re like family; hustlers chase cheques, long after work’s over.
Payment at mid-tier is a pittance, negotiated down to seem a privilege, still—you’re following passion, after all! People leave everything behind for it. It’s been this forever?
Hardly a private-equity (PE) fund or venture capitalist invests in films. They possibly can’t wrap their head around economics of an enterprise, where one employee (star) could take home half the manufacturing budget.
What’s left for the product? Indeed, what gets ploughed back into an assembly-line, for an industry, then? It’s just business for show; or showbiz, as it were?
Family firms, hedging bets, with long-term skin in the game, perhaps survive better.
It didn’t occur to me, until I met Sooraj Barjatya, boss-man of Rajshri Productions (estd. 1947) that the Marwari community—that runs/guides family businesses, in every nook/corner of India—don’t get into Bollywood.
Barjatyas are a notable exception. Marwaris find film business inherently unsafe.
In the mid-noughties, Hollywood majors set up shops in India. In hindsight, this was mainly to deepen distribution networks for Hollywood movies in the vast, untapped Indian market—but also to produce
local films.
International plus Indian ‘corporatisation’ for movies followed. Grey suits replaced OG producers in white shirt-trouser-shoes, with suitcases. Producers, who gamed this, reported to the suits at studios. The latter greenlit films.
They understood stardom, alright—hiking up lead, male actors’ fees further. Big corporations, in other fields, equal research and development (R&D).
Highly likely, any studio would’ve invested heavily, over five years, to build Baahubali (2015)—why, because where are the (nationwide) stars!
Through these ‘studio’ years, blockbuster producer Rakesh Roshan, 75, tells me he continued to make films the tradition way.
That is, raising capital from distributors of film territories, across the country, to finance a film. Distributors ensured strong release, regionally. Producer split profits, thereafter. Those distributors are now practically gone.
Suits/execs at the studios, Roshan says, “only understand marketing.” Which, I guess, includes, second-guessing audiences.
Hence, sequels, remakes, reboots, remixes… Hollywood’s the same. Roshan says, “They have no sense of story, screenplay, music, lyrics, songs/situations…”
What’s Hindi films, if not Hindi film music, first. The decline in the primacy of the music composer, and their albums, that lived through generations—over random, assortment soundtracks, with multiple composers—somehow coincides with ‘studio’ years.
So do other malpractices, involving agents, middle-men, entourage…
At a recent YouTube panel-discussion, with mainstream journalists from top two Bollywood websites, I was stunned learning about tactics employed by producers, publicists, to bribe influencers, fake numbers, dox rival stars, spread misinformation… Sounded like an extortion racket.
Such murky stuff demands those indulging in it to drown in their own muck—hoping to make filmmaking, only about films. I know, people rightly complain about high ticket prices at multiplexes. Here, I’m hearing about producers “self-buying”/“block-booking” tickets, with nobody inside theatres. As in, none of their own, wish to even watch their film, for free!
OTTs (circa 2016 onwards) were obviously the biggest hope for change in films since studio Bollywood. They could punt on edgier cinema, testing fresh talents, ideas, thoughts, experiments, that mainstream theatricals leave little scope for.
They first co-opted the existing film industry, instead—drawing in top directors, based on their CV; just as execs get hired at corporate firms.
They swerved soon after to old Bollywood rules, anyway—lazily aiming to widen, rather than deepen, their audience-base.
Audiences switched to OTTs over theatres. As they had in the 1980s VHS era. What did they find? Water had levelled. Everybody swimming in the same (shallow) pond here, too.
A friend of mine was recently at the interview-board of a film school, of which she’s an alumna, and hence, was once an interviewee herself.
She asked candidates the same question she’d been asked, about 15-20 years ago—to name their top few working Indian directors.
She tells me their answers were the same as hers, then. It’s been 20 years! That’s all you ought to know about what’s ailing Bollywood.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture.
He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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