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/

The Dark Side of Bollywood

The Dark Side of BollywoodI am in the process of compiling all my columns and converting them into eBooks based on their themes. I wrote regularly for Sify.com and India Today’s DailyO.in on a wide variety of topics.

Bollywood is not all happy romance, song and dance. There is a dark side to it and there are many reasons why it doesn’t stand up to the rest of the cinema in the world, especially with regards to its content. From columns like How Amitabh Bachchan ruined Bollywood for good to Why Salman Khan is our most pathetic superstar to 5 ways how Bollywood promotes misogyny are all featured here…

https://www.amazon.in/Dark-Side-Bollywood-Collection-Columns-ebook/dp/B0BFDNRVYC/

 

Did the multiplex culture peak in 2019?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5K1X3KN127bWZCqIvDWVRb

Podcast summary…

red-1556341_1280I read an article which claimed that 1994’s all-time blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! had about 74 million footfalls while 2016’s Dangal had 37 million footfalls. That’s almost half. In 1994 India’s population was 945 million as against 134 million in 2016. Globally Dangal made ₹2000 crore while Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! crossed ₹125 crores.

While the global box office has really boosted figures, the domestic ones have been supersized by the multiplex. In the 1980s the newspaper cost around ₹1 and today it is ₹5-7. A ₹10 magazine is ₹100+ today. A bar of chocolate was ₹2-3 and today you can get one for ₹20-30. I remember going for a balcony show in a cinema hall for ₹4, but today it could be anywhere from ₹300 to ₹1000 plus. While many items have seen a 10-20 fold increase, the cinema ticket has increased at least a 100 fold.

That’s thanks to the multiplex and also extra rates for 3D. But time was when multiplexes were great when they were new and were a novelty. The seats, the digital screens and sounds, the five star look and feel. But I think that charm has gone and we have taken it for granted.

Pre-pandemic there were many problems which were festering. For one, as I mentioned, they are too expensive. And it’s not just the ticket price, but the food too. In the 2000s, I read that it was only the popcorn business that saved the industry. It does appear like that. Multiplexes seem to make most of their margins from food and adding that going to the multiplex actually costs many thousands for a family. The food is overpriced and oftentimes bad quality food. Once I saw a huge samosa and wondered how I was going to finish it and I was told I had to take a minimum too. The food is supersized and they will try to empty your pockets as much as possible. Ten years back, I bought a ₹160 tea and found it was a badly mixed milk powder with a tea bag. I asked for a fresh cup or a refund and the seller refused. I threw it in the dustbin in front of him and he merely shrugged his shoulders. This is the kind of arrogance that makes people not want to visit and not lament the decline of the multiplex.

Once the security didn’t even allow a milk bottle for a toddler, they are that ruthless.

Maybe their first line of business is not films and food but giving diabetes. Fizzy drinks are served in 400/500 ml cups and sometimes only half-litre cups are available. What are the ethics of giving half a litre of a carbonated drink to a small child when your machine could easily dish out a 100ml cup?

I think this rich arrogant multiplex habit got broken during the pandemic. Commuting is another problem where people don’t want to get out that often. WFH stands for Watch From Home.

Enough has been said about the Streaming space and how it has taken over the global mindspace. Even if Netflix collapses, there are hundreds of streaming services in the world which will take its place.

In any case Bollywood had become out of touch with the populace with its far Left ideology and blindly aping American progressivism. Hollywood itself has gone woke and is struggling. Nationalism and pride for one’s religion and culture is the new thing. A lot of people became disillusioned after the Sushant Singh Rajput death and the nepotism debate that followed. In fact I read an article where the Marathi film Sairat could have made ₹100s of crores but multiplexes refused to increase the number of shows even though they would have all gone housefull.

People point to Pathaan, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer. There was a Pathaan blitzkrieg, a record number of screens were booked and were given a long run, high publicity and hype. You cannot do that for every movie. The overall trend is downward.

To me a visit to the multiplex is unappealing. The prices. The commute. The security checks to get in. The overpriced bad food. First Day First Show used to be a thing once upon a time. Nowadays most of us can wait for the Streaming release, which usually doesn’t take much time.

Plus I have many bad experiences too. One IMAX hall is so badly designed that you can see multiple heads on the screen. That’s for a ₹1000+ rupee ticket. Once they shut the movie before the multiple MCU mid and end credit scenes.

I remember once I saw Tron Legacy. There was a technical glitch and they did not show us scenes before the climax. After much fighting and shouting, they showed those scenes and then just stopped before the climax, saying you already saw the climax. After that the multiplex staff started pushing the viewers. I have never seen such arrogance in any cinema hall in my life.

I visited that mall after 5-6 years. The mall had shut down and resembled a haunted house. The multiplex chain went out of business and the owner went bankrupt. A sign of things to come? A symbol of the future? Karma? Will that be the fate of most of the malls and multiplexes in the post-Covid world? Or will they make a miraculous comeback? Who knows!

The Force Awakens was why you got the shit fest of The Last Jedi

millenium-falcon-1627322_960_720Everyone blasted Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi and I was no different—Read: Star Wars is dead! However very few people seem to realize that the problem was not The Last Jedi, but its predecessor Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens. That was the movie where everything went wrong and from then on the entire Star Wars franchise was doomed.

We got a really bad movie in the form of The Force Awakens and yet curiously everyone decided to cheer it as if it was one of the greatest things ever. It made more than US$2 billion at the global box office and into the Top 100 Rotten Tomatoes all-time great movies.

Never had such a downright mediocre movie got such a massively positive feedback from the fans, critics and box office.

Let me explain…

1. It wasn’t really Episode 7, but Episode 8.

8The original trilogy flowed seamlessly in terms of storyline as did the prequel trilogy. In fact you can watch Episodes 1 to 6 back to back and feel you are watching a continuous mini-series. However there is a huge jump from Episode 6 to 7.

At the end of Episode 6: Return of the Jedi, both the Emperor and Darth Vader were completely defeated and Princess Leia was in charge. Luke was the greatest Jedi in the galaxy and Han Solo was a genuine hero.

So at the beginning of Episode 7, this troika should be in charge of a government that is a replacement of the Empire or the defeated Empire should have struck back. So either Leia is leading the galaxy or an equal battle is brewing with a new potential Empire.

However we know absolutely nothing about all this as things have simply been fast forwarded. Snope is supreme. (How?) Leia-Han romanced, Kylo Ren was born, grew up and went to the Dark Side and nothing is explained properly. We know absolutely nothing of this and are expected to follow it seamlessly nevertheless.

George Lucas had always hinted that Episode 7 would go straight to the point where Luke-Leia-Solo were old but this is not at all what any of us expected. This seemed like a Star Wars from a parallel universe and not the original one.

2. The entire new cast was terrible.

rey-1449242_960_720Adam Driver—Kylo Ren. Daisy Ridley—Rey. John Boyega—Finn. Oscar Isaac—Poe Dameron. Absolutely no-one leaves a lasting impression. This is quite a lacklustre cast indeed. They are all weak and it is surprising how they were cast especially considering that Netflix and the TV universe together have such a vast and talented pool of excellent actors who give great performances.

When I came out of the cinema hall, I had forgotten the screen names of all of them. I struggled to discuss the movie with people after that with phrases like “That woman Jedi”, “That Darth Vader knockoff”, “That Stormtrooper” and “That other guy”. Such a thing was unthinkable when the original Star Wars was released in 1977.

Decades back when fans came out: Darth Vader, Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2D2 and C3PO were firmly etched in everyone’s minds. They immediately became cultish and their action figures sold like hot cakes.

Even though the prequel trilogy was boring and wooden at times, it had excellent performances: Liam Neeson—Qui-Gon Jinn. Ewan McGregor—Obi-Wan Kenobi. Christopher Lee—Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus. Samuel L. Jackson—Mace Windu. Ray Park—Darth Maul.

3. Leia-Solo were both terrible.

In terms of acting both Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher gave terrible performances. There was zero on screen chemistry between them even in the—what should have been an iconic scene when they meet. Both of them looked contrived and somewhat like props and I was left wondering what the hell they were doing there. Both of them could have well been left out of the movie and nobody would have noticed.

4. It broke away from the Star Wars canon.

While the prequel trilogy diluted the force with its use of Midi-chlorians, that was about it. Stars Wars 1 through 6 can be considered canon. Episode 7 first broke away, not Episode 8.

In the original trilogy, Luke was a perfect Bildungsroman character who grows slowly and steadily throughout the three movies. He is a total non-entity at the beginning, but you accept him as a great Jedi master at the end.

Darth VaderEven in the prequel trilogy, Darth Vader requires three movies to become Darth Vader. Not so with Rey. She receives no formal training of any kind and knows nothing about the Force and yet masters it. Her defeating of Kylo Ren (a trained Jedi dark apprentice with the Emperor as his master) looked downright ridiculous and gimmicky.

The whole concept of the Force was reduced to a joke.

Storm TrooperAlso a storm trooper rebelling made no sense. There have been 9 Star Wars movies (including Rogue One) and only one storm trooper rebelled in one of them? What sense does that make? Either all of them were brainwashed or a storm trooper rebellion should have broken out in Episode 8.

The concept of the Force is trivialized in Episode 7 and pulverized in Episode 8.

On their first attempt, Rey commandeering the Millennium Falcon was a travesty in Episode 7 but Rose commandeering the speeder was a total farce in Episode 8.

Rey beating Kylo Ren in Episode 7 was Mary Sue-ish, but Rey beating the Emperor was Super Mary Sue-ish in Episode 8.

Luke looked stoned at the end of Episode 7 and super stoned in the first half of Episode 8.

It all began in Episode 7. Episode 8 merely took the garbage forward.

5. It was a remake of Star Wars 4.

BB8 R2D2While this was mentioned by everyone, it wasn’t rubbished enough because it kindled the nostalgia in all the fans. But the truth cannot be denied. Kylo Ren was discount Darth Vader. Emperor Snope was discount Emperor Palpatine. Rey was a discount Luke-Solo hybrid. General Leia was discount Princess Leia. Old Solo was discount Young Solo. Finn was discount storm trooper. Poe was another discount Solo.

The story line was more or less the same. A message had to be carried across the galaxy. BB-8 replaced R2D2. Starkiller Base replaced the Death Star. It was extremely lazy story writing. They then randomly got Kylo Ren to kill his father Han Solo to break the mould somewhat, but the entire story line was incoherent.

What if they had shown a Queen Leia, a supreme Jedi Master Luke and an ageing General Solo being attacked by a mysterious Sith Lord from another galaxy? They would have actually had to use their brains then!

star-wars-Feminism6. Feminism will defeat Patriarchy!

In Episode 7 Luke came only at the end of the movie and threw away his Lightsaber. Solo was clueless, jobless and finally killed unceremoniously. Kylo Ren looked like a scared pansy throughout the movie. Finn and Poe were subservient to Rey. Episode 7 was merely the platform for the Episode 8 Social Justice Warrior shit fest.