There was a time not so long ago. By the way that time is
not yet gone totally when Bollywood makers would focus making cinema in a camp
based manner. Certain directors and production houses would have certain
favourite actors. The story would come
in later. A lot many character actors would also be the regular team.
The multiplex audiences as we call them are slowly forcing a
change in that system. Today you do not have just camp based cinematic efforts.
There have many such instances of box office smashers but Stree is one of the
biggest examples of this concept based cinema now taking firm roots. As these
lines are being written Stree is all set to breach the 100 crore mark. This is
the second concept base movie in the last few years to cross that line with a
not so well known box office pulling stars in it. The last time that breach happened
was with Hindi Medium which had Irfan in it. Veerey Di Wedding could have taken
that mantle but unfortunately it had one heavy duty star in it called Kareena
Kapoor so while it still does have a
healthy claim to a concept based movie working we cannot but deny that Kareena’s
presence would have brought in some crowds. You might also note that VDW did
not touch 100 crores.
Stree has a very weak star cast. Shraddha Kapoor is its
biggest star and she has been out of box office favour for some time now. Add
the fact that the plot moves reasonably on her presence. Yet Stree has worked
with names like Rakumar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi. Frankly I had to google search
to find names of certain other actors in the movie after I saw the movie.
The success of Stree is notable when other hyped movies from
bigger production house have fallen like nine pins around it. Alongside Stree
was a bigger name Yamla Pagla Deewana which had two or our biggest heavy duty
stars till date – Dharmendra and Sunny Deol. The movie crashed because it had
zero regards for a story or concept. Those who saw Yamla Pagla Deewana loved
Stree more and those who saw Yamla Pagla Deewana after Stree probably went back
to watch Stree again.
Stree’s numbers are remarkable because horror as a genre has
not been a money minting genre in India and you would only blame directors who
keep repeating the same story lines across same movies which are even called
the same like Raaz one two three and reloaded. Stree did not have a remarkably great horror
story either but it was conceptualized in a small town environment and balanced
with a love story.
The biggest example that audiences will buy concepts big
time are many. Aamir and Akshay are
driving their career simply on concept base cinema. Rajkumar Hirani has driven
big money at box office just on this. In short these stars and director have
caught on the audience pulse which is concept based now.
Talking of the biggie 2.0 which is around the corner and you
will find a director’s hard enough effort to push a concept to us. The fact that trailers of movies like Patakha
and Love Sonia are creating buzz and views on internet is because audiences are
fed up with the release on 5000 screens two line plot movies.
You have stars who are now trying to latch on to this new
trend and redefine themselves therefore you see a Vidya Balan in a Tumhari Sulu
a Deepika Padukone in Piku. Audiences loved these movies because yet again
these were beautiful concepts delivered with conviction.
Concept based cinema has also debunked the myth of audiences
not interested in cinema watching beyond weekends. Stree has worked its numbers
steadily on weekdays too. Compare this with how some heavy duty superstar
garbage content which was pushed to us in 3D versions too have crashed at box
office in recent times.
The last and not least for sure contribution of this concept
based cinema is that it is pulling the rug from the feet of our arrogant stars
who release solo movies across screens on major weekends and leave us with no
choice but to go through the below average content that they dish out. Concept
cinema is pulling away the audiences and cracking their monopoly. Well done.
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