It won’t be wrong to say that a huge section of entertainment seeking audience is starving right now. If Akshay Kumar & Katrina Kaif starrer Sooryavanshi and Ranveer Singh-Deepika Padukone starrer ‘83 movie was not enough, many more big films are on the verge of or have already got postponed. Even Salman Khan won’t be able to fulfill his commitment this year as his Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai won’t make it to Eid holiday. As of now, only God knows when will the lockdown lift-off and theaters will re-open but life is surely going to take a long time to get back on a normalcy.
If we talk about the past few years, there has been a dearth of big action and comedy films and we all know how big response films like Baaghi 2, War, Housefull 4, Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior and others received. The opening day business of War and Baaghi 2 was easily more than most of the people in trade had imagined. Who can forget Baahubali & Baahubali 2? No one could’ve imagined that these Telugu films dubbed in Hindi will drive the nation crazy. It happened and left everyone shocked. Baahubali 2, in fact, surpassed all the previous records by a huge margin and did 500 crores plus business just with the Hindi version.
Remember the period of 2009? There was a huge economic crunch going on and the waves were noticed in India as well. In the year 2009, not many films did well at the Box Office and then towards the end of the year 3 Idiots released. Not just it was the end of the recession, it was also the Christmas period and the film went on to cross 200 crores mark. For the Bollywood industry, even 100 crores club was a new thing and 200 crores was something very special. Of course, the extremely enjoyable content of 3 Idiots had a huge role to play in its performance but no one can deny the contribution of the post-recession effect. After 3 Idiots in 2009, Bollywood took 3 years to reach near 200 crores mark. Salman Khan & Katrina Kaif’s 2012 film Ek Tha Tiger collected 198 crores. Then in 2013, Bollywood finally crossed 3 Idiots with Shah Rukh Khan & Deepika Padukone’s Chennai Express.
Now, this Coronavirus Pandemic has affected the Bollywood industry on a much larger scale and the audience is starving like never before. This hunger will only increase in the coming months before the theaters actually getting opened and the situation getting normal enough for people to visit them. Big films, in fact, won’t hit cinemas until other big countries like the US, the UK, and others also recover completely. That’s why I strongly believe, whatever the next big Bollywood film will be it will create a Dhamaka at the Box Office even if the content is not really up to the mark. People are going to watch the cinema just for the sake of it. Just to have a good time with family.
And if the content of the film is also good, then there’s no doubt that Baahubali 2’s Hindi lifetime record could be surpassed. The All-Time highest grosser of Bollywood right now is Dangal. The film which released back in 2016 is the only one in Bollywood which has reached closest to 400 crores mark. It did a lifetime business of 387.39 crores back then. 4 years after Dangal, a big Bollywood film with the universal appeal can cross 500 crores mark and the entertainment hungry audience will be a huge driving force.
We hope the pandemic comes to an end soon, life returns to normalcy and we see big films on the big screen only. Big films like Sooryavanshi & ’83 movie have become hot favourites of OTT companies right now. Reportedly, a huge amount is being offered to producers so that they sell the rights of these films for Digital only release. But we seriously look forward to seeing these films setting new benchmarks and entering the 500 crores club. And then other big ones like Radhe, Brahmastra, Laal Singh Chaddha can, of course, help the Box Office revive.
No comments:
Post a Comment