Sunday, June 14, 2009

Business Trends of Bollywood Movies 2008 (Part-3)

This is the final part of my Bollywood trend 2008 article. The year 2008 will definitely be a year of small movies; movies that do not have high profile actors but great stories and talented actors who portrayed their characters very well on the screen. The first movie I am going to talk about is my most favorite movie of 2008; Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na. This is a beautiful romantic movie, which introduced Aamir Khan’s nephew, Imran Khan. This is a romantic story of two friends Jai (Imran Khan) and Aditi (Genelia D’Souza) who know each other since childhood but takes time to understand their love for each other. The production cost of the movie was Rs. 110 million. In its first week the movie collected Rs. 200 million with an average of Rs. 6,56,524 per print. In five weeks, the movie collected Rs. 520 million.

Another great movie was Rock On!!. The movie introduces Farhan Akhtar as actor. Farhan Akhtar is the son of famous script and lyrics writer, Javed Akhtar. Rock On!! tells the story of a rock band named ‘Magik.’ Farhan Akhtar played the role of ‘Aditya,’ the lead vocal of the band. The story of Rock On!! was simple and it had a great emotional quotient. The movie also introduced popular TV actress, Prachi Desai, and Shahana Goswami to the audience. Both these actresses were widely appreciated for their performances.

Other successful small movies are: A Wednesday, Aamir, Jannat, 1920, and Welcome to Sajjanpur. Welcome to Sajjanpur is directed famous Indian director Shyam Benegal. Benegal is known for making serious cinemas and many of them are considered as milestones of Indian cinema such as, Ankur, Nishant, Sardari Begum, Trikaal. Welcome to Sajjanpur was his first foray into comedy cinema and the movie was very well made and widely appreciated by critics and audience.

I will end this article by talking about a major problem Bollywood is going to face in near future. Bollywood is without doubt one of the top cinema industries of Asia and in the world. Hindi movies are not only popular in India but also in surrounding countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Middle East and now it is creating its own niche in the western audience and Hollywood studios are now investing in India. However, in near future, Bollywood would find itself lacking big money making actors like Amitabh Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan. After Amitabh Bachchan, in the 90’s, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar appeared. Later, Saif Ali Khan joined the ranks. Finally, Hrithik Roshan appeared in 2000. Today, these handful of actors are ruling the roster. After their departure, there are no big actors or actresses that would draw large crowds to the theatres. The main problem is Bollywood cinema has become a family oriented business. In the last few years, we have seen sons and daughters of big actors and directors coming into movies. These people do not have to struggle a lot to get into movies. From the legendary “Kapoor” family, there are Kareena Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor. Abhishek Bachchan is the son of Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. Harman Baweja is the son of director Harry Baweja. Abhay Deol and Bobby Deol are Dharmendra’s sons. Fardeen Khan and Zayed Khan are sons of famous actor, Firoz Khan. Famous actress, Sharmila Tagore is the mother of Saif Ali Khan and his sister, Soha Ali Khan, who is also an actress. Only few of these actors and actresses have given big hits. They are: Hrithik Roshan, son of actor-director Rakesh Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan, and Saif Ali Khan. Aside from these six people, none of the aforementioned actors and actresses gave any major hit movies over the year. In the next five or six years, the Khans and Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgan would not remain at the top and after them there are no big actors. I am not saying that the sons and daughters of big actors and actresses are less talented but the movie makers should reach out further and look out for talents outside the film fraternity. There are many talented young boys and girls who could become the next big name in Bollywood but movie makers should find them out and groom them. So that after three four years they can take over.

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