The Indian Cinema industry and controversies are two sides of the same coin. It was believed that any sort of hype/controversy – good or bad, would be beneficial for the film industry. It kept on indulging in needless controversies with no creative quality content to back them up. Yet they prospered in pushing their agenda and anti-Hindu narrative. But in the last few years, this trend has changed for the good.

People have started raising their voices against the bold anti-India and anti-Hindu agenda. Bollywood also drew flakes on the issue of nepotism. This was catalyzed by the Covid-19 pandemic and controversies that erupted after the unfortunate death of talented actor Sushant Singh Rajput. It seems that Bollywood has not recovered from this hard blow. It has been left far behind by content-oriented regional cinema. The change is quite evident when we analyze the collection statistics of the Cinema industry in the first half of this year.

According to the ichowk report, the Indian Entertainment industry (Bollywood + South Cinema) has amassed nearly Rs 5700 crores in the first six months of this year. While it may look like a large collection from the outside, the signs are not ominous for the film industry. As there is a saying that the devil lies in the details. On careful analyses of this collection, one can conclude that barring a few Hindi films, Bollywood movies have fallen flat at the box office.

Further, the collections after March are on a steep decline. The film industry registered a decent collection in March. It collected Rs 1665 Crores and gave a bleak hope of revival of the declining entertainment industry. Contrary to this, June month saw a massive slump with Industry registering collections of around Rs 799 crores.

The Covid-19 hit entertainment industry was somewhat revived, thanks to the South Cinema. As southern regional and multilingual movies have registered back-to-back success at the box office. First, the movie buffs crowded the theatres to watch Allu Arjun starrer ‘Pushpa: The Rise’. Then came the tsunami of RRR with Ram Charan and Jr NTR as the protagonist.

The larger-than-life cinema of Yash starrer KGF: Chapter 2 garnered unprecedented love from cinema fans. These south cinema movies demonstrated that content is the king. The southern industries have shown their appetite for risk which is paying off, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also a fact that everything is not rosy for South cinema and Bollywood had its own silver lining in the entire first half of this year. Quasi-Bollywood movie ‘The Kashmir Files’, with its raw truth and word-of-mouth publicity, skyrocketed the collections of Hindi cinema. The horror-comedy sequel Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 starring talented actor Kartik Aaryan performed tremendously and gave a ray of hope to the Hindi cinema industry.

Apart from these brief periods of success on the shoulders of ‘The Kashmir Files’ and ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2’, Hindi movies suffered humiliation at their theatrical release. Actors who had in the past, without impressive storylines single-handedly taken their movies to 100/200/300+ crores clubs, are failing miserably.

Latest Releases with their fate

Between April and June, the theatrical releases included K.G.F: Chapter 2 which trumped all the contemporary movies; John Abraham starrer action-packed movie ‘Attack’; South remake ‘Jersey’ with Shahid Kapoor in the lead role; multi-star cast film ‘Runway 34’ with Ajay Devgan in the protagonist role; crude Nepotism driven ‘Heropanti 2’; Kangana with her female lead action thriller ‘Dhakad’; Ayushmann Khurana trying his luck in ‘Anek’ could not garner love from the fans.

The June releases too didn’t bring much love and affection to the cinema fans of Hindi Cinema. Akshay Kumar's historical drama on the legendary Hindu King 'Samrat Prithviraj’ missed the authenticity and fans gave it heavy thumbs down. Acclaimed actor Pankaj Tripathi could not carry the story of ‘Sherdil’ on his shoulder; the Multi star cast of Jug Jug Jiyo tanked at the box office.

In between came the south pan India movies that rocked the theatres and ran on for weeks. It included movies like – Adi Vishesh’s Major on the inspirational life journey of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and Lokesh Kanagaraj’s 2nd movie of the Loki universe Vikram with a powerful star cast of three legendary method actors Kamal Hassan, Fahad Fazil in the roles of protagonist and Vijay Sethupati as the antagonist.

Obvious reasons for Bollywood’s repeated humiliation at the hands of content-driven cinema  

The three obvious reasons for people losing faith and love in the Hindi movie industry is its unfounded hatred for Hinduism, lack of creativity that forces them to depend heavily on remakes, and nepotism choking opportunities for talented actors, singers, and music composers, and scriptwriters.

Apart from these reasons, the Covid-19-induced lockdowns attracted the cinephiles to Over-the-top (OTT) platforms. These platforms bridged the language and release time gap plus it gave the convenience to watch the latest releases within the comfort of their home. The amplitude of content on these platforms gave more chances to character and method actors to showcase their abilities.

If this continues and Bollywood keeps on toeing the same Hinduphobic line without implementing the constructive feedback of the Cinema lovers, Bollywood will keep on losing its charm. The Hindi cinema industry has tasted the power of Boycott_Bollywood trends so it can’t and should not undermine it going ahead. So, it is high time for them to change this as the 75% can anytime become an inevitable doom in the form of Boycott entire Bollywood. OTT or theatre, Hindi or regional cinema, the love for entertainment can never die in society, so better for them to realize that and adapt to the changing trend.

References:

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