STAR POWER: What is Super Stardom? (Part 1)

STAR POWER

PART 1 – What is SUPER STARDOM?

(Article by Archit Mishra)

“Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.”

And Indian cinema has witnessed this intentional growth quite significantly over the last decade.

A balcony ticket that used to cost Rs 50, has now been replaced by a ‘Platinum’ ticket costing no less than Rs 500. A 10-rupee Samosa, now comes in a combo offer of Rs 250. The star who dominated the 90s, when a movie could be watched at a price of less than Rs 15, continue to rule the roost, but watching their films in theatre today is significantly more expensive today. In fact, quality entertainment with family and friends at a cinema hall is getting more expensive with each passing day. Booming multiplexes, war-like promotional / advertising strategies, internet, social media and cable TV, all of these factors have their bit of contribution in this growth.

This, in turn, has led to creating lot of awareness and curiosity amongst the movie going public. Today, the audience is cognizant enough to judge as to what they are going to spend 1000 bucks for over the weekend. ‘So and so film has collected 100 crore in 3 days’, ‘My superstar has broken your superstar’s record’, ‘I predict that this Diwali release shall collect 50 crores on one day’, you will find a movie critic and trade analyst in every household of India. Be it Tea-break conversation in offices, argument at Pan-Shops or News Channel debates, the Box office collections, Movie Reviews and Bollywood Fans are everywhere. Just like Cricketers, Bollywood superstars are no less than role models for the gen-next and some of them are even god-worshipped by their fanatic fans.

What is STAR-POWER or SUPER-STARDOM?

‘A’ is the mightiest star of Bollywood as he has been the most consistent over past few decades, ‘B’ is the true synonym to Superstardom as he commands the craziest fan following of all time, and ‘C’ risks his stardom with most releases every year so he is the best, this list shall go on and so can the unending debate without understanding the crux of box office model. Unfortunately, time and again, virtuous fan-following has got converted into ugly fan wars.

With this write up, our aim is to solve this enigma of Superstardom. Most of us don’t understand that there are numerous reasons other than just the lead actor which contribute to the opening day collections of a film. Genre, banner, song promos and so on. Well, according to me, if you remove all these factors, what’s left is star power.

So, the theory behind our blog is pretty simple. In layman terms, if the same story, release date, banner, co-stars, music, etc. is given to all the actors, what probably would be their respective ‘Opening Day collections’ or how much footfalls can a particular star guarantee on his might alone in the theatres? This is what I call as Superstar Power.

X-Factor

After researching the recent Bollywood trends, we’ve identified 8 most vital X-Factors that influence the first day collections of films other than the lead actor. These X- factors are listed in the below diagram.

RULES

There are three straight-forward rules to calculate star power.

CONCEPT: Our idea for calculating the Star Power is actually to neutralize the effect of all the X-Factors. So, if an actor has an advantage in terms of any of the X-Factors, then we would subtract an amount from his opening collection based upon pre-defined criteria and vice versa. For example, if Aamir Khan has Rajkumar Hirani calling the shots behind the camera (for PK) and Salman has Sohail Khan (for Jai Ho), then Aamir has an advantage and we would subtract the Director X-Factor from PK’s opening. On the other hand Salman has a disadvantage, so he deserves addition in Director X-Factor.

FORMULA: We’ll take the sum of all the X-Factors and then simply subtract that from the First Day collections. Thus, the formula for Star Power can be depicted as below:

STAR POWER = [OPENING DAY COLLECTIONS] minus [Sum of X-Factors]

AVERAGE: Moreover, if an actor has multiple releases in a year, then we will calculate the Star Power figure corresponding to each film and then simply take an average.

NOTE:

This model is unique and one of its kind. Its study and analysis is not stagnant but a continuous process and thus we’ll be upgrading it time and again with enhanced options as per the latest trade trends.

We’re considering only the First Day collections for judging Star Power (and not First Weekend or Lifetime collections) because it is quite evident that movie reviews and word-of-mouth publicity starts affecting the film from the second day itself.
So, who is the biggest Super Star of India?

How can we calculate the above mentioned X-Factors?

What is the actual impact of X-Factors on Star Power?

Well, to get the answer to all these questions, you will have to wait for our next article in this series. The hysteria of crazy Star Power is arriving soon. Until then keep surfing.

We would love to know what you feel about our article. Also tell us what are your criterias to judge Star Power? Please do share your feedback and suggestions in the comments section below.