The increasing external threat for the Hindi Film Industry

The footfalls of Hindi Films in the last couple of years has declined. Around 33 crore tickets were sold in 2013, which dropped to 32 crore in 2014 and went down further in the last two years with Hindi films selling just 30 crore tickets in 2015 and 2016. A drop of 10% from 2013 to 2016 is quite significant – more so with the increase in the number of multiplex screens across the country.

Out of the 125 crore ticket sales in the last 4 years, majority of tickets have been sold for Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar films. Akshay may not deliver those big grossers, but he has done 12 films in the last 4 years and has helped sell nearly 10 crore tickets. He is the lifeline for exhibitors in the Hindi markets. Aamir does very few films, Shah Rukh Khan films are not sustaining after the weekend and Hrithik Roshan is going through a tough patch.

Remove the Top 3 ticket-sellers and the industry is as good as dead. The internal battle of trying to pull each other down is increasing with ‘clash’ announcements almost every other week. 95% of film releases are failing, yet we continue to churn out more rom-coms than we ever have.  Top directors like Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar, who once made pan-India films, are now making films that can only be watched by the high-society or urban audience in 4-5 cities. Even that section of audience is rejecting films like ‘Befikre’ which was directed by the man who once gave us a film like ‘DDLJ’.

As far as content-driven films are concerned (i.e when the audience come to watch a good film and not the star), the Hindi film industry has very little to show apart from ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’ which went on to collect 150 crore at the domestic box office. That aside, no other film has even crossed the 125 crore mark without an established star and a non-Khan film is yet to cross 200 crore.

To coincide with the Bollywood decline is the growing strength and acceptance for Hollywood and other regional films. A film like ‘Sairat’ is grossing 100 crore even though its business is mainly restricted to just one major state in the country. Hollywood films like ‘Fast and Furious 8’ without any major promotional campaign or city tours by stars, should finish with India business of 90 crore. ‘The Jungle Book’ last year went on to collect nearly 200 crore in India.

And then we have a Telugu film which has shown the potential of film business in the country by collecting nearly 130 crore net on a single day, that too on a non-holiday without any ‘festive’ advantage. Even the combined might of two major Hindi superstars – Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan – only resulted in collections of 30 crore net on the first day.

Like S.S. Rajamouli, another visionary South director – Shankar – will soon extend his base throughout the country and his films have the potential to be equally big with the added advantage of star-power. It might feature a Akshay Kumar, but it’s still a film produced in the south.

It’s quite clear that the weakest link of the Hindi Film Industry is its content and the lack of visionary writers and directors. But we continue to invest more time, effort and money into marketing and getting the perfect release date – both of which, a good film doesn’t even need.