Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan lost their star value

A great change has taken place in Bollywood. Till date, it was the movie stars who dominated deals with the distributors; the bigger the stars, the higher the price tag of the movie but that is not happening any more. Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan, two of the top actors of Bollywood, are finding it very difficult to find distributors for their movies. Nobody is ready to pay the money the producers are asking for.

Hrithik Roshan’s Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara and Abhishek Bachchan’s Game have remained unsold. Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara is a multi-starrer movie. It has Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin and Naseeruddin Shah. The movie had been shot in exclusive locations in Europe. The movie has been directed by Farhan Akhtar’s sister, Zoya Akhtar, and produced by Excel Entertainment, owned by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani. Game, which stars Abhishek Bachchan and Kangna Ranaut has also been produced by Excel Entertainment.

News reports are saying that Excel Entertainment is looking forward to sell both the movies as twin-package deal for Rs.1 billion but the distributors are not ready to pay so much money for the movies.

An official from a top corporate house said, “Yes. This is true. Ritesh did come to us with a twin deal of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Game. Game did not excite us as a business proposition. We are not likely to discuss this with him any further.”

A senior official from PVR cinemas confirmed that Ritesh Sidhwani approached them to sell Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara and Game and said that this is a big deal which requires multiple discussion session and his company would thoroughly go through the entire deal but he admitted that the money is too high for the two movies which put them in a dilemma.

In the first half of 2010, Hrithik Roshan’s Kites Hindi movie and Abhishek Bachchan’s Raavan tanked at the box office. Both were big budget movies and had been marketed aggressively but both of them failed miserably. Anil Ambani’s Reliance BIG Pictures which bought the distribution rights of Raavan, lost huge amount of money.

Times of India reported that Sidhwani’s spokesperson sent them an SMS which says, “The deal is already closed and it is for three films, not two. We can’t give you the details now.”

This incident reveals that a new trend is rising in Bollywood. Gone are the days when a star’s name would determine the price of a movie.