Bollywood’s formula to produce a hit film has changed drastically in the past five years. Ingredients such as a story, screenplay, continuity and acting skills seem to matter less than they did in the days of Sholay and Deewar. If it has some of the other stock elements, the more the critics pan the film, the better business it seems to do.
A lot of the credit, or blame, goes to Bollywood’s bad boy Salman Khan, said trade analysts. With Kick, which has made more than Rs 200 crore at the box office after it was released on July 7, he has become the only actor to have delivered seven films back-to-back that have done business worth Rs 100 crore or more.
Today, a film is no longer considered a hit unless it can cross the Rs-100-crore barrier, say trade experts. Breaching this mark has become more important for directors and production houses than making a good movie, and the two sometimes seem to be mutually exclusive. For actors, too, to be recognised as bankable stars, a Rs-100-crore film has become an essential element on their CV.
These mega films are partly a product of an impeccable PR machinery that has transformed the economics of the film trade. But their heart, claimed producer and director Sajid Khan, these blockbusters retain several conventional Bollywood elements.
Sajid Khan, who has managed to break the barrier with Housefull 2, claimed that in addition to him, only a handful of directors – such as his sister Farah Khan, Rohit Shetty, Prabhu Deva and Raj Kumar Hirani – stay true to Bollywood’s heart.
So what are the secret ingredients of the Rs 100 crore movie?
Action
Most of these films have one major thing in common: action. Salman Khan in Kick, Ajay Devgan in Singham, Akshay Kumar in Rowdy Rathore and even Shah Rukh Khan in Chennai Express all become superhumans attacking 15 baddies with one kick. In this, these films have been influenced by action sequences in south Indian films, especially those starring Rajnikant.
Anti-hero
The presence of a quintessential hero is still the biggest USP, much like in times past. But unlike then, today’s protagonist is more an anti-hero than a righteous and honest angry young man, the way Amitabh Bachchan used to be.
The old heroes had a sensitive side when it came to people they loved but were aggression incarnate in fending off the so-called negative elements. Today, audiences don't mind if the hero is corrupt. On the contrary, they love it if he is a cad, a bad boy who later undergoes a change of heart.
Snappy dialogue
Puerile lines such as "Hum tumme itne chedh karenge ki confuse ho jaogey ki saans kaise le aur paadhey kahan se!" (I will poke so many holes in you that you won't know where to breathe from and from where to release gas) and "Don’t angry me" from Rowdy Rathore are beyond silly, but the single-screen audience loves them.
They frequently throw coins at the screen when their favourite star delivers one of these lines. Surprisingly, even though aimed at the masses, it is also lapped up by the classes, who secretly like these outlandish statements.
Item number
An item number – a dance sequence meant to titillate the men in the audience – stars either a mainstream actress such as Katrina Kaif or Kareena Kapoor, or someone like Malaika Aurora and Sunny Leone, who specialise in this sort of thing. It is an essential ingredient in getting audiences curious about the movie.
The lyrics of the item songs are usually lewd, but the tunes often become so ubiquitous that they soon lose their shock value and get absorbed into India's soundscape. Sheela Ki Jawaani , Munni Badnaam and the more recent Baby Doll, featuring Sunny Leone, have all got more than a million hits on YouTube even before the release of their respective films.
Marketing
PR activity has become the backbone for the success of a film. Much like Hollywood films, Bollywood now has a big marketing budget. Some films like Ra.One, released in 2011, spent a third of their total budget of Rs 145 crore on promotion.
Mega movies have been boosted by PR strategies such as getting on to reality shows to promote the film, product endorsements and partnering with newspapers and television channels. Promoting films on social media is now essential.
Single-screen monopoly
Most of these Rs-100-crore films pre-book single screen theatres in small towns to ensure that the audience is compelled to see the movie if they are in the mood to watch a film. Production houses work in partnership with distributors to ensure that small-budget movies don’t get screen space and are confined to the multiplex audience.
This sometimes leads to conflicts between big production houses, as it did in 2012. That Diwali, there was a big battle between Yash Raj Films and Ajay Devgan Films. Ajay Devgan, who was releasing Son of Sardar, didn’t find enough single screens to release his film as Yash Raj Films had pre-booked most of them for Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Devgan took the matter in court and the battle is still going on.
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A lot of the credit, or blame, goes to Bollywood’s bad boy Salman Khan, said trade analysts. With Kick, which has made more than Rs 200 crore at the box office after it was released on July 7, he has become the only actor to have delivered seven films back-to-back that have done business worth Rs 100 crore or more.
Today, a film is no longer considered a hit unless it can cross the Rs-100-crore barrier, say trade experts. Breaching this mark has become more important for directors and production houses than making a good movie, and the two sometimes seem to be mutually exclusive. For actors, too, to be recognised as bankable stars, a Rs-100-crore film has become an essential element on their CV.
These mega films are partly a product of an impeccable PR machinery that has transformed the economics of the film trade. But their heart, claimed producer and director Sajid Khan, these blockbusters retain several conventional Bollywood elements.
Sajid Khan, who has managed to break the barrier with Housefull 2, claimed that in addition to him, only a handful of directors – such as his sister Farah Khan, Rohit Shetty, Prabhu Deva and Raj Kumar Hirani – stay true to Bollywood’s heart.
So what are the secret ingredients of the Rs 100 crore movie?
Action
Most of these films have one major thing in common: action. Salman Khan in Kick, Ajay Devgan in Singham, Akshay Kumar in Rowdy Rathore and even Shah Rukh Khan in Chennai Express all become superhumans attacking 15 baddies with one kick. In this, these films have been influenced by action sequences in south Indian films, especially those starring Rajnikant.
Anti-hero
The presence of a quintessential hero is still the biggest USP, much like in times past. But unlike then, today’s protagonist is more an anti-hero than a righteous and honest angry young man, the way Amitabh Bachchan used to be.
The old heroes had a sensitive side when it came to people they loved but were aggression incarnate in fending off the so-called negative elements. Today, audiences don't mind if the hero is corrupt. On the contrary, they love it if he is a cad, a bad boy who later undergoes a change of heart.
Snappy dialogue
Puerile lines such as "Hum tumme itne chedh karenge ki confuse ho jaogey ki saans kaise le aur paadhey kahan se!" (I will poke so many holes in you that you won't know where to breathe from and from where to release gas) and "Don’t angry me" from Rowdy Rathore are beyond silly, but the single-screen audience loves them.
They frequently throw coins at the screen when their favourite star delivers one of these lines. Surprisingly, even though aimed at the masses, it is also lapped up by the classes, who secretly like these outlandish statements.
Item number
An item number – a dance sequence meant to titillate the men in the audience – stars either a mainstream actress such as Katrina Kaif or Kareena Kapoor, or someone like Malaika Aurora and Sunny Leone, who specialise in this sort of thing. It is an essential ingredient in getting audiences curious about the movie.
The lyrics of the item songs are usually lewd, but the tunes often become so ubiquitous that they soon lose their shock value and get absorbed into India's soundscape. Sheela Ki Jawaani , Munni Badnaam and the more recent Baby Doll, featuring Sunny Leone, have all got more than a million hits on YouTube even before the release of their respective films.
Marketing
PR activity has become the backbone for the success of a film. Much like Hollywood films, Bollywood now has a big marketing budget. Some films like Ra.One, released in 2011, spent a third of their total budget of Rs 145 crore on promotion.
Mega movies have been boosted by PR strategies such as getting on to reality shows to promote the film, product endorsements and partnering with newspapers and television channels. Promoting films on social media is now essential.
Single-screen monopoly
Most of these Rs-100-crore films pre-book single screen theatres in small towns to ensure that the audience is compelled to see the movie if they are in the mood to watch a film. Production houses work in partnership with distributors to ensure that small-budget movies don’t get screen space and are confined to the multiplex audience.
This sometimes leads to conflicts between big production houses, as it did in 2012. That Diwali, there was a big battle between Yash Raj Films and Ajay Devgan Films. Ajay Devgan, who was releasing Son of Sardar, didn’t find enough single screens to release his film as Yash Raj Films had pre-booked most of them for Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Devgan took the matter in court and the battle is still going on.