Random musings about Bollywood’s Rs 500 crore club

nature-3047449_1280Baahubali 2 – The Conclusion in Hindi made Rs 511 crores at the box office in 2017 thereby creating the Rs 500 crore club. But it was a Tollywood movie. Bollywood had to wait till 2023 to enter the Club and it did it with style with 4 movies in a year: Pathaan, Gadar 2, Jawan and Animal.

Some random musings about these…

Shah Rukh Khan got 2 movies in this Club: Pathaan and Jawan.
The Deol brothers (Sunny and Bobby) got 2 too: Gadar 2 and Animal.
Manish Wadhwa had two releases this year, both where he played an evil Pakistani General villain and both made it to the Club: Pathaan and Gadar 2.

Three films had an on screen father and son angle:
Jawan: Shah Rukh Khan and Shah Rukh Khan.
Animal: Anil Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor.
Gadar 2: Sunny Deol and Utkarsh Sharma.
(Incidentally Utkarsh’s father Anil Sharma is the director and this all is a repeat from the original Gadar).

When it comes to the global gross, the Top 2 movies are:
Dangal (2016): Rs 2024 crores.
Jawan: Rs 1148 crores.
The common factor to both these movies is Sanya Malhotra.

Shah Rukh Khan superhit pairing used to be Kajol:
Karan Arjun, Baazigar, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, My Name is Khan, Dilwale.
But now all his movies with Deepika Padukone are blockbusters:
Om Shanti Om, Chennai Express, Happy New Year, Pathaan.

Also listen to…

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6kLXwEyAadfspez5JaIhc3

https://open.spotify.com/episode/63dXip5tX1MOAQW6GWceLD

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6lAK6JIepqfN7ONEOObTQe

Is this the end of Disney?

disney-world-226721_1280In 2012, The Avengers was the world’s top grossing movie.

Since then it’s been Disney all the way, which also owns the MCU, Pixar and Star Wars.
In 2013, it took the following positions at the box office:
1, 2, 7, 10.
The domination continued.
From 2015-19 it was virtually unbeatable.
2015: 1, 4, 7.
2016: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9.
2017: 1, 2, 6, 8, 9.
2018: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9.
2019: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9.
So in 2019 they were invincible taking the Top 5 and 8 out of the Top 10.
But since then it’s been downhill for them.
In 2020 they drew a blank in the box office thanks to Covid, where there were hardly any big releases.
Since then they have been around but not that dominant.
2021: 1, 7, 9.
But that Top position was Spider-Man, which is in association with Sony.
2022: 4, 6, 8.
2023 (Till October): 4, 6, 7, 9, 10.
So for 2 years in a row they may not make it to the Top 3 when they had the complete Top 5 before Covid.

There are reports that their parks are not doing that great and Disney+ is under performing.

Is this the end of Disney or will they make a comeback?

The Lost Years of Shah Rukh Khan

The Lost Years of Shah Rukh KhanSRK is India’s ultimate superstar. Self-made. A Man of Destiny. A Game Changer. He made the transition from TV star to Bollywood superstar seamlessly. He ruled the 1990s and peaked in the 2000s. He virtually created the NRI market. He had a slump in the late 2010s and now he’s back, at least at the box office. This is a collection of columns that take a look at those lost years.
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CHQSFWFS/

Techceleration!!!

Techceleration!!!A collection of articles on the technological acceleration in the post-pandemic era. Saluting Indians from all walks of life who dug down, fought, innovated, upgraded and did whatever jugaad they could to get through the pandemic crisis and ended up laying the foundations for a great future. Small businesses embraced technology. Large enterprises went fully into Digital Transformation mode. Digital Government became a reality and not just a mantra. There was one common theme in all of this: Technological acceleration or techceleration, which will continue in the decades to come.
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CHQJG56B/

Is the Internet really forever?

fantasy-ga6bab6ff1_640I had a Twitter account with 5K+ followers and 10K+ Tweets which had a record of all my articles and blogs. That got hacked and hijacked one day and all my old Tweets just vanished. I used to write regularly for Sify and had more than 1000 articles and one day they just upgraded the website and all those articles now show broken links.

I had made a list of all of my correct predictions on the internet and now there’s no proof as my old Twitter feed and article archive has been 404ed. One of my Tweets had more than 3K ReTweets and 140K views and I found that on the Internet Archive. I was happy since the original Tweet had gone. Now I am hearing that even the Internet Archive is on its way out.

So is the Internet really forever? We were taught that civilization began around 6000 years ago. However now there are theories that Göbekli Tepe, the Sphinx and the submerged city of Dvārakā could be more than 10,000 years old. If that’s true, then most of the records simply vanished.

Paper/papyrus records wither and die. Libraries are burned to the ground. Stone tablets with inscriptions survive, but are gibberish if you don’t know the script. I have many floppy disks (the new generation doesn’t know what they are) which are useless for me. CD/DVD drives are on their way out. They may become like floppy drives.

Websites have to keep getting upgraded otherwise they may lose content. And they may especially lose content thanks to the upgrade. We are creating a record amount of content compared to the history of our civilization, but how long will all that last? In fact one could argue that in a catastrophe, it would be easier for all that content to be wiped out.

Stone tablets last for thousands of years. Paper can too if preserved correctly. In a catastrophe they can be preserved. But for the content of today you need a device, electricity, the Internet and a server and someone who is maintaining all that 24X7. Come to think of it, it’s much easier to lose content today. In fact it’s much easier to lose ALL the content today. That’s quite a sobering thought.

On a side note maybe that’s a good thing for content creators. There have been reports of artists destroying all their works and beginning afresh.

On a personal note, now when I usually meet a person for the first time, they don’t know what my politics is thanks to most of my political Tweets and articles being taken off the grid! Nice to start fresh with someone without having any misconceptions.

Global Grandmasters of Power

Big Tech Global Grandmasters of PowerThe world has seen Big Finance, Big Oil and Big Retail in the past. They have been powerful, ruling and molding the world. But nothing comes close to the power of #BigTech. Silicon Valley is probably the most powerful non-Government in history, with resources from everything from money to political power to influence to data of all kinds. They have unleashed the Culture Wars and know you better than you know yourself.

A collection of articles I have written for the CyberMedia Group, including Dataquest, PCQuest and CiOL.com.

https://www.amazon.in/Big-Tech-Global-Grandmasters-Power-collection-ebook/dp/B0BXQ1SWMC/