Too Many Players In El Dorado

When Hollywood studios entered the Indian film market, they were being touted as the game­changers. Now, they are planning to quit the game they couldn’t quite comprehend.

- Giridhar Jha

WHEN Divya Rao, erstwhile member of the creative team of UTV Motion Pictures, chanced upon a small newspaper write­up on an ageing Haryana wrestler, Mahavir Singh Phogat, and visualised the potential for a gripping biopic on his life story way back in 2012, she could hardly have anticipated that her small idea would become the highest­grossing film in the history of Indian cinema five years later.

Dangal, Aamir Khan’s spectacular hit, has been breaking box-office records left, right and centre since its Christmas release. With a business of more than Rs 385 crore in the domestic circuit alone so far, it has infused a fresh lease of life into the 104-year-old industry, reeling under demonetisation in the past few months.

Dangal is believed to have benefited everyone associated with the film. And yet, Walt Disney Productions, which has co-produced the film with Aamir Khan Productions, seems set on its decision to opt out of the movie production business altogether in Bollywood. As of now, Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif’s Jagga Jasoos, slated for an April 2017 release, may well be the last Hindi movie to roll out from the famed Hollywood stable, which had acquired UTV Motion Pictures in 2012. And Disney is only following the script of other Hollywood studios —with many of them, having entered Bollywood at a time when the industry was overhauling its financial model, being unable to stay in the game.