Bollywood film industry is facing existential crisis as halls footfalls decline

Three Khans have to reinvent with fresh content to ensure return of viewers

- BY KUNAL BOSE

Bollywood, which is the other name of Hindi language film industry has for too long depended on big stars and formula cinema.

But all this is now going kaput as one too many big budget Hindi movies are finding viewers thinning out fast soon after their release, leaving producers and financiers high and dry. Well, there is one Aamir Khan who says he doesn’t get paid if his film draws a blank at box office. This is because he works on profit-sharing basis. If you take a count of Hindi film releases in the last five years, you will find featuring a big star is no guarantee of a film's commercial success. On the contrary, small budget films based on interesting stories and hemmed in by good actors find patronisation by the public. Let’s talk about the stars.

The three Khans of Bollywood, who incidentally are of identical age around 60, are no longer a guarantee of box office success. Featured in a number of successful films in terms of revenues and profits but only occasionally for cinematic excellence over many years, they to their mortification are finding, whatever their fan base, the Khans being in lead roles are more often than not will not ensure the cash register ringing. Think of the kind of losses the financers will have to incur if a Khan film fails to draw the crowd to theatres, considering the enormity of budget.

The bratty Salman Khan, who has made it a practice to take off his shirt at the slightest provocation on the screen and indulge in unworldly heroics, must be greatly distressed that his Eid release Sikander has failed to pull the public to the surviving single screen cinema halls and multiplexes, no longer confined to big cities.