Is this the end of the Khan triumvirate kingdom in Bollywood?

2018 has been a very unique year. In a lot of ways this has been an interesting year for those who can understand the historical churns of Bollywood. Somewhere in the  late 80s the violence genre ruled by Amitabh and other names like Dharmendra and Mithun in particular gave way to the new age of fun films and romance. The three Khans happened from 1987 to 1992 and since then all three have only build their fan base with one bit hit after the other. 

2018 therefore has been unique the three Khans who once had movies which felt like fresh new air or now part of the stale old order which is refusing to change or so it seems. The Ayushmans and Rajkumarraos have served warning notices with content rich cinema which has held its own against big names like Race3, Thugs of Hindostan and Zero. In fact the Khans now look ironically struck in a larger than life image which was the case when they came knocking the doors in 1980s with the older superstars then.

The third part of why 2018 is actually a very big manifestation of the kingdom ending is in the fact that never before have all three Khans failed together. In fact most of the times it was two of them succeeding and one not doing so well . If we were to dissect the situation further then the weakest on box office today is the man who once could do nothing wrong at the Box Office – ShahRukh Khan. Post Happy New Year which came almost five years ago, none of his films have done very well in India. Yes his fans and supporters will point out that his overseas collections and therefore worldwide collections still make his movies money spinners but with the last two outings like Jab Harry Met Sejal and Zero even overseas audiences seem to be deserting the auditoriums.

Salman has been in one hit one flop mode for a long time now. However given the way Race3 has bombed it is clear that he will have to be very careful and on his toes with his next one.  The audiences have given a stern message that image and hype won’t work anymore.

Aamir infact has the strongest ground amongst the three Khans. However the way Thugs Of Hindostan went down , in fact its numbers actually sank on the opening Sunday which is extremely shocking. Fact that this movie was the first joint outing of Amitabh and Aamir has also really been the fact that why this movie has been the disappointment of the year and the biggest damage it did was to the perfectionist image of the content rich Khan.

Does this therefore mean that the Khan rule is coming to an end. The answer is difficult to arrive at. In some sense the answer is yes. The audiences are no longer willing to get fooled by formulae struck offering of the Khans. In Salman’s case his logic defying films have been crashing Race3 was a colossal failure. In SRK’s case the audiences are now summarily rejecting his repeated forced romantic avatars. Aamir to that extent did not have an image but it will take some effort to undo the damage of Thugs.

In some ways the answer to the above question is No too because the initial audiences are still guaranteed when these three are in a movie but here is the warning for a long time Amitabh supporters gave this argument when his fortune as a superstar showed decline post 1988. That initial generating audience for Amitabh disappeared sooner than later.

Again in the example of Amitabh is the biggest hope for Khans. Amitabh quickly repositioned himself. He was willing to share the limelight with younger stars. Post Mohabbatein in fact this strategy of competing with younger stars made Amitabh look better richer and far more dignified. In fact the cult of Amitabh grew further.

The Khans could do that, lets face it all three of them are above 50 now. However hard they try some roles will go out of their range now. The key is look further ahead and move to a better new content. Repeating and hoping that days of a Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge or Mainey Pyar Kiya of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak will return will be suicidal for the Khans. In any case the audiences have sound the warning bells more than once for all of them. The kingdom will surely change, it will no longer look like the way it has been for the Khans.

Having known them for so long looks like they will survive but only if the changing audience trend is respected by them.

Are the Bollywood film awards becoming a TRP hungry joke ?

Let us face it, cinema awards are usually controversial. More so if they are from Bollywood , though you would be slightly assured as a Bollywood fan that there are times when even Oscar awards have had their share of controversies. Having said that the voting system of Oscars is a bit mature which blesses it with some semblance of professionalism.

The scene in India every year moves from worse to worser. Most of us know the now famous unwritten boycott of Bollywood awards that Aamir Khan has been practicing for years now, it all started when Aamir was deprived for an award for Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander and since then that movie is more remembered for the controversy than its content.

The biggest problem that Indian cinema, particularly Bollywood awards have no or zero credibility is that most of these awards are owned by a certain media house and a lot of media channels in electronic medium will not carry the stories about them or cover them because no one wants to cover a competitor. Add the fact that some of the prominent awards are backed by a TV house too so some awards get unabashed and unfair coverage some other ones. In fact awards are even bartered at times As Akshay Kumar once famously claimed that he was asked to do dance numbers for an award on stage by a famous award ceremony group of Bollywood.

The national awards could have been the answer to being that third party institution of perfect awards however with media ignoring these beyond a point because they have their own awards to protect and then governments ways of executing these awards have made them more like a necessary yearly ceremony value than public respect. In short national awards are more respected by those who win it, the public rarely is involved. In fact national awards also have had their share of controversy in last few decades. Sometimes a hard hitting movie that criticizes the government of the day is not just nominated or sometimes a current favourite matinee idol is given an award just to keep him or her loyal to the powers that be and before you jump to conclusion this has been taking place since 1960s.

This year however another act of complete arrogance was unleashed by a famous awards held by one of India’s most respected film media publication. Let us not name it though for a lot many of you it will not be difficult to hard guess which one it was. The said award has already declared awards for 2018 when the year was a still four weeks away from getting over. Some big banner movies are yet to be released and some of them have some of the biggest makers and actors involved. If you were to draw a parallel it was like Oscars being released without waiting for Silence Of The Lambs in that year.

What made the whole circus laughable was how media groups congratulated the winners. How the winners went about tom toming there trophies in the media and social media. How the fans went berserk. In all this no one pointed out the blatant act of unfair blocking of some deserved actors. For example without a doubt Gajraj Rao’s was a great performance in Badhaai Ho,  but how can we so certain that Tigmanshu Dhulia would not be equally appealing in Zero? The point is not to degrade Gajraj Rao. The point is fairness.

As such whenever a certain actor is recommended over someone else then there is a fan group which gets agitated but at least an award function should show that they have judged all the nominees of that year.

It will obviously take us years to get something which is as credible and consistent as an Oscar but private award owners are the most competent ones to show the way and over the years through consistency we could start looking forward to these. In fact the whole act of these awards being announced sooner than the year itself ending was probably the hunger to be the fastest. TRP is where all media virtue melts.

Are the A-lister makers hell bent on destroying the content goodwill of 2018?

2018 has been a heart warming year for the content lovers . Movies like Badhaai Ho ,Andhadhun ,Tumbbad and Padman to name a few had a different content to show. These were stories written and executed with great creative intent.  After the largely dull 2017 it was like Bollywood was delivering a great form of apology to us audiences and for such movies going to theaters in 2018 was a heart warming and exciting exercise.  For a lot of us ardent movie lovers it was like 2018 might become a kind of benchmark year for makers when different content like Parmanu and Padman worked at the box office.

Then came the A-listers with their hyped over budget good for nothing cinema and literally crashed the party ,like a mannerless chief guest landing on the party cake.  This has been the sad part those who once literally held Bollywood together and could be trusted for entertaining content in their own defined genres were the biggest villains of drag and failed cinema of 2018.

The first one was Salman Khan himself, the man who has been running on fire at the gold office for so many years now. A golden run which started with Dabangg almost ten years ago seems to be ending in such a ironic manner. Race3 is the benchmark of duds this year and probably for some years to come. Salman’s cinema never really runs on logic but this one had things gone bit too far. Over priced tickets ,large screen count and a 3D format could not save it because audiences wanted content. Salman led the charge of garbage in that sense from A listers this year.

Then came Yashraj Films with Thugs Of Hindostan. As a Bollywood follower the failure of this gigantic directionless ship of a movie would not have hurt you so much had it not been such a historic significance movie. This was the coming together of two of our greatest content generated superstars. Amitabh and Aamir. We expected a lot and the first mistake was to trust a average director like Vijay Krishna Acharya with a good watchable movie forget a classic. The hype about the making did not really show on the screen, in fact this one had careless execution and rank arrogance written all over it.

Two Point Zero came and as of now the good news about it is that at least it will make money at the box office. Made at a gigantic budget of 550 crores its box office numbers as of now, however celebrated they are with certain section of the media – are no great shakes. Having said that at least the makers of this movie cannot be labeled as flop. Still when you look at it with the perspective of hype, the fact that this one was helmed by director Shankar – this one is another very average screenplay riding on luck and a gigantic worldwide screen count of 10500 plus screens. Having said that this one too was a disappointment from an A lister team. The arrogance comes from the fact that its makers still compare it with Baahubali and it is nowhere near Baahubali on pure content value.

The problem of our better known makers can be traced to Manmohan Desai, once a ruler of box office he did not realize that audiences were slowly getting bored of his lost and found themes. His drama content was getting repetitive and dragged. The first warning signal came when Ganga Jamuna Saraswati bombed at the box office. Legend has it that when Toofan was being released Amitabh pointed out to Manmohan Desai that final product was not looking good. To which Desai replied audiences will watch what I will show them. Toofan was a tragedy at box office.

Our current A listers are not really learning the lessons. Look at the trailer of Simmba , it is rape and revenge. A theme that I guess properly worked at the box office last time in Aakhiri Raasta ?  Sure Simmba could work at the box office because the makers will ensure we don’t get to see anything else on a new year weekend.  Is this what they are all about? The party spoilers of 2018 Bollywood ?

When remaking old hindi classics was the easy way out !

The recent Simmba trailer has got more eyeballs for the fact that it seems to be heavily inspired from Temper a south movie. In fact for some time now South movies are being remade into hindi and though not so noticed Hindi movies are getting remade in south too, in case you are not aware A Wednesday, Tumhari Sulu and a few others are attempted down south already.

There was however a time in the 1980s which was heralded by the potboiler makers of that decade. They recycled a long forgotten or not so forgotten Bollywood classic again into a superhit and in the process we got some of our biggest stars of the 1980s who reinvented their career and some of the biggest production house of today found roots then through these movies. These movies were then ,interestingly dismissed as flukes by critics but today they are all classics we swear by.

It all started with the unexpected super success of Pyar Jhukta Nahi, Mithun’s career was almost but over and the heady days of Disco Dancer were long forgotten.  The movie was a remake of the 1977 classic Aa Gale Lag Ja. This movie was produced by an unkown name then KC Bokadia. The movie smashed one record after the other and not just became the biggest hit of 1985 but started a golden run for Mithun at the box office,which at one point of time made him next only to Amitabh. As amazing coincidences go you will again find shades of Pyar Jhukta Nahi in Raja Hindustani the Aamir Khan superhit.

Mithun’s second contribution to this trend was the revenge thriller called Aandhi Toofan, completely inspired by Sholay. This one had Hema Malini playing the role of Thakur and the director in an interesting twist  had the villains as a biker gang. The movie had Mithun and Shatrughan Sinha in a Jodi that looked heavily inspired from Jai and Veeru. The movie did not please the critics but rocked the box office. This one was the second production attempt of a man called Pahlaj Nihalani , he found his way from this movie.

Paap Ki Duniya – Pahlaj Nihalani once again produced a movie which was heavily inspired from the Manmohan Desai classic called Parvarish. Where a bandit kidnaps and exchanges his son with the son of a cop.  This was the classic story of good finally winning against the bad. It had Sunny Deol and Chunkey Pandey playing the two lost sons. The movie was one of the biggest hits of that year.

Mitti aur Sona – Pahlaj Nihalani could not have more of the remake formula and nor did the audience appear thirsty, this one was also a surprise hit for Chunky Pandey as a solo hero. This one was a remake of the Navin Nishchal starrer called Hanste Zakhm and Bappi Lahiri’s songs were party favourites.  

Mr.India -  Very few would know this but this biggest classic from science fiction genre of the 1980s was inspired from Mr.X in Bombay a Kishore Kumar classic. Salim Javed had to struggle to find a hero for this one and even Amitabh rejected it. This one finally found a taker in Anil Kapoor and this one launched Boney Kapoor into one of biggest producers of the then Bollywood.

Teri Meherbaniyan – The 1980s had a competition of milking old stories between KC Bokadia and Nihalani and this one was from Bokadia. This superhit where a dog avenges his master’s death from his killers was heavily lifted from Yash Chopra superhit Noorie. As coincidences go , in both the movies the leading lady was Poonam Dhillon. This one also started the trend of one compulsory animal in a lot of movies to come. Labrador as a must have pet trend can be blamed or credited to this movie.

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak – The biggest contribution to remake banao paisa kamao trend of the 1980s came from Mansoor Khan. It launched a smiling young man on the screen who rules till date – Aamir Khan.  The movie found its inspiration from the other bollywood classics like Laila Majnu and Heer Ranjha where the primary plot point was death of the couple in the climax as the zaalim zamaana won’t agree.  We will need three pages to write about the careers this one launched.

Colossal Duds after hyping them is a long known Bollywood tradition !

So am sure the Aamir or Amitabh fan in you might have come out of the shock of the fact Thugs Of Hindostan, the most anticipated movie of the year has turned out to be a dud. Fact of the matter remains that delivering duds after huge hype is a long maintained tradition at Bollywood you might remember some, you might forget some. However here are some of those movies which had a lot riding on them and they came a cropper on the box office. No they were not ahead of their times movies which later grew to become cult. They were and are plain pure duds. Here are some of those moments of Bollywood history when all had seem lost for those involved.

Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja – This one was forever in the making. Announced right after the super hit almost decade defining Mr.India in 1987, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja was released after one hyped up story in the media after the other. In fact to use a famous line of today the nation wanted to see the movie as soon as yesterday. There were signs that not all was well Shekhar Kapoor the original director left mid way leaving it in the hands of his assistant Satish Kaushik. There was a mad amount spent on great sets ,costumes and cinematography. The music was the first signal the songs when released did not create any fire. The movie was extremely crucial for Sridevi whose crown was almost lost to Madhuri the new challenger on the block. This movie was a headache inducer with even Anupam Kher the villain hamming away to glory. Jackie Shroff was the only dignified thing in this one. Made at a the then King’s treasure budget of Rs.10 crores this one left many crying. As a college friend popularly branded it for me this one was – “Rupaye ki Rani Charane ka Raja !”

Trimurti – This one had created huge controversy. Sanjay Dutt’s connect with the terror world forced the then numero uno maker Subhash Ghai to replace Dutt with Anil Kapoor, an error for which Dutt never forgave Ghai till he worked in Ek aur Ek Gyarah. Trimurti had probably the biggest frenzy for it. It was the coming together of Subhash Ghai with Mukul S Anand the tech whiz kid of 1990s, the man who brought Hollywood feel to Indian Cinema. This movie was also coming together of SRK the then challenger to the established Kings of Bollywood. Trimurti turned out to be a jigsaw of well shot scenes and Anil Kapoor’s Sikander was the only good thing about it. The movie is also remembered for reducing the theater icon Mohan Agashe to a peacock meets and orangutan called Kooka.

Mela – The only good thing this one did is that Akshay Kumar got a wife for himself. As any trivia hungry bollywood buff would know is that Twinkle Khanna had told a pursuing Akshay that is Mela does not work she will marry him. It bombed and how. This one was a remake of Karwan with shades of Sholay in it. Twinkle Khanna was the principle character in this one and her Roopa remains the benchmark of loud overacting for a female star in Bollywood till date. Even Rakhi’s mere Karan Arjun aayenge appears like a dignified Bachchan compared to this one. Add an action choreographer called Mahender Verma as the principle Villain and Aamir Khan in his most hyper avtar ever.  This one was a festival of overacting .

Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon -  This one was the fourth attempt of Sooraj Barjatya. He was the man who could do nothing wrong, someone who had redefined a genre in Bollywood. Someone who brought families back to theaters. This one was his collaboration with Hrithik Roshan the new crush of every Bollywood watching female , a new comer who was then hailed as the first legit threat to SRK. The movie had an animated parrot, a high bp suffering heroine in Kareena and Hrithik’s first and only over acting role till date. This competition of hyper activity crashed and probably caused such a dent in Barjatya’s reputation that it took him a good three years to recover till another marriage video called Vivah saved him.

There is good news in the debacle of Thugs of Hindostan !

I belong to the tribe of those who had heavy expectations from Thugs of Hindostan. Like many I did not exactly celebrate the failure of this hugely anticipated movie. Yes I did laugh at the army of humour filled memes that came out once the below average content of this movie started hitting all of us. So many of us who are either Aamir or Amitabh or both fans would be feeling a bit low and some of us might be getting involved in the war of fans on social media.

However in every big positive news there is a element of caution and in every story of gloom there is hope hidden somewhere , same is the case with this debacle of Thugs Of Hindostan. The message to an arrogant bollywood is loud and clear. You can hog the screens. You can monopolise the choice offered to a viewer. You can ensure that your movie gets extended holiday weekend. The audience will now put its foot down and show you the door. Beyond the weekend and blind fans there is no hope for such low on content high on commotion cinema. Race3 was the first warning and Thugs of Hindustan is almost a final decision from the courts of the audience. The decision is give us cinema of content or we prefer to watch TV or cricket home, or we will still walk in to the cinema but go for the better content three or five week old movies. How many of you would have bet on the fact three weeks back that Badhaai Ho will end up earning more than Thugs Of Hindostan. You can hold on to your chairs while you read this but so far as Indian Box Office is concerned that is looking a clear possibility now.

This is good news any which way you look at it. For sure it will hurt the egos of big makers and hopefully in a positive way. Imagine a determined Aamir Khan willing to make up to the audiences with his next and what if he chooses to have Amitabh a part of that one too. Indian audiences are always willing to forgive and forget. Imagine a studio like Yashraj going back to the Yash Chopra days when content had some respect. This is also good news for the audiences who for once seems to have send in a united voice. This debacle will also force the ready to hype it up Mumbai club of reviewers that audiences will not buy into their hyped up content either. To be fair to the reviewer community they seem to have been reasonably honest with TOH.

This debacle coinciding with content based movies still running strong purely on word of mouth is also restoring faith that slowly after almost a decade of shoot and scoot cinema its usability as an effective tool seems to be coming to an end. It can be termed as poetic justice that a trend of huge screen holiday releases which started with the Aamir superhit Ghajini which also made audiences look at how many crores and not how much content is ending with an Aamir starrer. Given Race3 and now TOH makers will be brushing up screenplays, those who don’t are signing the death warrants of their films.

It is good news that so far as commercial viability is concerned suddenly a Tabbu is coming across as a better bet than hear my accent shake my rear Katrina. People are now preferring to fall in love with a great actress and not a hyped up item girl.

Therefore as an audience and as a fan of Amitabh and Aamir, in that order, I am happy Thugs of Hindostan bombed. In fact its working at the box office would have been the bad news. Directors will now give these two war horses better stories. Producers will look at the thrill count and not the screen count. You have to look at this movie failing and movies like Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho as the great churn that is happening in Bollywood today. Those who do not respect it will perish. In that sense failure of  Thugs Of Hindostan is the best gift the audiences could give themselves this Diwali.

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