The audience that used to earlier flood the cinema halls, in order to escape their mundane lives, now do the same, but, this time, at the comfort of their home through OTT platforms on their smartphones and screens.
One of Hindi cinema’s evergreen icons, actor Aamir Khan once said, “Box office figures are not something that can decide the success of a film on its own, but they are one of the many yardsticks that help me measure how well a film has been received”.
One can’t help but agree with Aamir Khan’s statement on box-office collections.
But, now the question is what exactly are the audience looking for in a movie that would decide its fate at the box-office?
Is it the star cast? Is it the story? Is it the visual extravaganza or is it the songs?
According to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, around 1,800 to 2,000 films are made annually in India across Hindi and many other regional film industries like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam etc with budgets ranging between 25,000 to 30,000 crore rupees.
The Hindi Film Industry, also known as Bollywood produces a staggering amount of more than 1000 films every year, making it a significant contributor to the net box office collections in India.
But, in recent times, Bollywood isn’t seeing much glory on the big screens with multiple big-budget films like 83, Sikander, Jigra, Baby John, Maidaan and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan failing miserably at the box-office, in spite of having a stellar star cast, great production elements and extensive promotions across platforms.
The box-office failure of such big-budget films cause damage to not just the producers who make the film, but also to the distributors and exhibitors i.e, the theatre chains like PVR INOX and single screen theatres who screen the film.
While the actors and the film producers might move from one project to another to recover their loss, things aren’t as easy as it seems for the distributors and theatre owners who constantly need people at their screens in order to keep the money coming in.
Filmmaking has now become an expensive and risky business in India, with massive budgets being prioritised mostly towards actor’s fees and their looks, production values and promotions, while the quality of content takes a backseat, as there are hardly any efforts made towards quality screenplay and storytelling, which is what would keep the audience engaged with the film in the long run.
Manoj Desai, the executive director of Mumbai’s iconic theatres Maratha Mandir and Gaeity Galaxy once said in an interview with Hindustan Times, “Movies of Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra would run for weeks. Abhi Bollywood ko kya ho gaya hai? Why can’t they make a proper story? Where are the good directors, artists, writers? What’s happening?”
Post the Covid-19 pandemic, with the advent of OTT platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Jio Hotstar, the theatre chains have been affected in a big way as people have now become conscious of spending hundreds and thousands of rupees over the pricey movie tickets and the snacks. People now prefer spending the same money on the monthly or annual subscription fees of the OTT platforms that are much affordable in nature and can be viewed multiple times when compared with the movie tickets, which can be used only once.
Since people have now become extremely choosy over the kind of films they would like to watch on the big screens, only a handful of Hindi films have worked at the box office post pandemic. Some of them include Drishyam 2, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, Pathaan, Jawan, Gadar 2, Munjya, Stree 2 and Chhaava etc.
It is quite interesting to see that in order to somehow bring people back to the movie theatres and to fill the gap of entertainment with a feel of nostalgia, multiplex chains like PVR INOX are re-releasing iconic films like Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, Jab We Met, Veer Zara, Laila Majnu, Tumbbad, Rockstar, Love Aaj Kal and Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein etc.
Additionally on the occasion of Aamir Khan’s 60th birthday, PVR INOX had also organised a special film festival called as “Cinema Ka Jaadugar: The Aamir Khan Film Festival”, from 14th to 27th March 2025, across India, as a tribute to the actor by screening some of his iconic films like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Lagaan and Rang De Basanti etc.
Although having such multiple re-releases might seem exciting at first for both the Cinematographer’s and the theatre chains, but, this excitement might get outdated soon, if new films with strong storytelling aren’t brought back to the big screens.
We must realise that no matter what, people in the long run don’t really care about who the actor is or what background they come from or how popular they are on social media. All that they care about is whether the film made sense to them or not, as people have now become extremely choosy with their choices and unforgiving towards the films they don’t enjoy.
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