Bollywood caught between hits and flops as moviegoers rate ‘experience’, story higher than stars

According to various estimates by trade analysts in the industry, of all the films released since March 2022 after the reopening of theatres, only two films have done ‘average’ business.

Out of 31 films that have been released in theatres, 22 (close to 71%) have been flops, losing 50% or more of their investments, while two have been blockbusters, earning more than 200% at the box office, and five were marginal hits, making some profits.

There were only two Hindi films that did average business at the box office or recovered cost without making much profit.

“Today, the business of box office collections has become a story of extreme behaviour. If a film works, it works very well, and if a film flops, it flops so badly…it is a disaster,” said Anil Thadani, a well-known film distributor and owner of AA Films.

Trade pundits had expected ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2’ to collect anything between Rs 120-150 crore at the box office, but the film ended up doing much better with a net business of Rs 185 crore, whereas big budget and star-cast films like ‘Samrat Prithviraj’ and ‘Bachchan Panday’ couldn’t collect even half of their production cost.

Shaaminder Malik, a trade analyst and an independent film distributor, said it is not the stars that attract moviegoers anymore. “As the films are available on the OTT platforms just after four-weeks, cinema lovers are not interested in going to the theatres unless it’s a ‘great experience’,” Malik said. “We have seen how Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Amitabh Bachchan and Kangna Ranaut have failed at the box office, while Kartik Aryan and even stars have got good audiences because of the story.”

Industry analysts point out that this stark divergence in the box office performance of films is because of the changed “tastes” of audiences during the pandemic.

Ameya Naik, founder of Fantasy Events, an event management company, said, “In the pandemic, audiences were exposed to non-Hindi content which had a judicious dose of entertainment, novelty or engaging value of a story, and depth sufficient enough to ensure sustained attention. Post the pandemic, they cannot accept stories that lack all these elements. Today, the loyalty of the audience is towards ‘stories’ and not to a star, language, or geography.”