How Bollywood is riding high on franchise frenzy to rake in big bucks

From A-list stars to top-rung producers, everyone is banking on franchises to keep Bollywood afloat in tough times

- Meena Iyer

An industry that has the propensity to put performers in watertight boxes, such as romantic heroes and action heroes, franchise heroes is the newest sobriquet on the block which has become a phenomenon. It stems from a simple truth -- as Bollywood grapples with poor economic health, it is leaning hard on franchises to stay afloat.

And as old winning ideas are being reimagined and rebooted, actors headlining the projects are mining the opportunity - some raking in as much as ₹100 crore for each film.

Such is the lure that recently veteran artiste Paresh Rawal, indispensable to the Hera Pheri series for his quirky Baburao act, demanded ₹25 crore (highest yet in his career) reportedly when cast for the film's threequel. It led to a kerfuffle with the film’s lead actor and producer Akshay Kumar. Rawal walked out of the project and returned subsequently after tough negotiations.

There are 30 franchises in the works at the moment and another 50 in various stages of scripting. Together, they make up 30% of the industry's revenue-generating pie, said producer N R Pasricha, who has just registered Ziddi 2 and Arjun Pandit 2 following the successes of the first productions.

It is in fact the successes of certain franchise films that have led to the current frenzy, said distributor and exhibitor Raj Bansal. Take for example Sukumar’s Pushpa 2 (2024) which raked in ₹830.10 crore, a big jump over Pushpa’s (2021) ₹108.26 crore. Likewise, Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) collected ₹118.7 crore and Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017) ₹510.99 crore. Closer home, Sunny Deol’s Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001), which did a business of ₹76.88 crore, raked in ₹525.45 crore when the film's sequel was released in 2023; among other things, it brought an unwittingly semiretired Sunny Deol back in the game.