It's raining Bollywood thrillers again

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the July 8, 2024 issue of India Today)

Bollywood has been feeling the heat this summer. We're halfway through 2024 and box office sales have been slow so far, especially compared to last year's record-breaking run of not one but three films.Pathan, Bridge 2 And Jawanset a new benchmark, crossing the Rs 500-crore mark nationwide. Hindi film production was so poor in April-May that low attendance forced cinema operators to cancel screenings, preferring to screen cricket matches or re-release older films (Rockstar, Lakshya, Swades) instead. What we are witnessing in the Hindi film industry right now is not just a lack of box office success but also a lack of confidence in our own content, says Akshaye Rathi, director of Aashirwad Theatres, citing the Lok Sabha elections and the IPL as contributing factors to the revenue drought. It is not the audience that has disappointed us, it is the really poor content that the industry has produced. It is not worth the time, money and effort that they put into coming to the theatres.

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The biggest earner of 2024 so far, Fightergrossed Rs 200 crore in India, an underperformance considering its budget (Rs 250 crore). Director Siddharth Anand's aerial action thriller has garnered considerable hype for being India's own star-studded film (Deepika Padukone, Hrithik Roshan) Top Gun. The public did not pay much attention to it. The most interesting sources of money came from the least expected quarters. Satan, a home invasion horror film centered on black magic starring Ajay Devgn and R. Madhavan, emerged as this year's surprise package, alongside promising series for women-fronted films such as Article 370, Laapataaa Ladies And Crew. The honor for the biggest surprise success belonged to Come towards mea horror comedy with no star cast and a CGI-created lead character, which has grossed Rs 85 crore so far. With flagship films failing to deliver, exhibitors like Rathi are hoping that more mid-range films will emerge to beat the box-office blues. It is only a matter of time before the one or two big-budget films click to give the impetus not only to the content-producing fraternity but also to the audience to flock to theatres, he added. What is exciting is waiting for the films that come out of nowhere and do well.

A whole new world

The Monsoon lineup is diverse, but no film is expected to be bigger in 2024 than Kalki 2898 AD (June 27), the Rs 600-crore dystopian sci-fi action drama with a runtime of three hours. The cast is also star-studded, from comedy stalwarts Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan to popular actors Prabhas and Deepika Padukone, who were wowed by the ambitious vision of Nag Ashwin, the Telugu filmmaker best known for MahanatiAt a recent media event in Mumbai, Bachchan, who plays Ashwathama, praised the young writer-director for conceiving such a futuristic and possible project. “It's a great honour to be a part of it… to have worked in a setting where they have really pushed the boundaries of what most of us have done our entire lives in the film industry,” he added.

With its landscape reminiscent of Dune and the Mad Max Ashwin sets his film in a time when Kaasi, aka Varanasi, is the last surviving city in the world and the Ganga river has dried up. Ashwin gave a glimpse of his ambition when he showed the three different ecosystems he has imagined for Kalki 2898 ADThere is the Complex, an inverted pyramid that rises into the sky and which he compares to the land of the privileged since he has the resources; Kaasi, whose occupants dream of being part of the Complex; and the mystical land of Shambala, which is a huge refugee camp that rebels against the Complex. Padukone, who plays Sumathi, a pregnant woman carrying what is believed to be a gifted child, has amplified the hype, calling Kalki 2898 AD unlike anything we have experienced or seen before.

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Last action hero

Interestingly, this is what the creators of Kill They also claim to offer the audience a more brutal and bloody film, but also a shorter one, 100 minutes. Produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions and Guneet Mongas Sikhya Entertainment, Kill (July 5) is set mostly on a train and has at least 40 deaths, which explains its short but effective title. At the film's trailer launch in Mumbai, Johar described the action film as a manic bloodbath and also ambitious given that it rests on the shoulders of a newcomer, Lakshya. I've heard a lot [on nepotism] and has endured for so many years, he said at the launch. I felt we had to take this step because we would be delighted for the industry to get a potential movie star.

With Kill, Johar and Monga want the public to know that there is also art in chaos. Citing films like Train to Busan and the John Wick On the series, which elevated action to a genre, Johar said the attempt was not to endorse violence but to show India a choreographed action film… that action is nothing less than an art form. Writer-director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat roped in stunt director SeaYoung Oh (Snowpiercer, War) to inject some vigor into his script, which already detailed a lot of the action. The goal, Bhat told Monga, was to make an emotional action film. As opposed to the heavy-handed visual effects Kalki 2898 AD, the greatest effects deployed in Kill These are the 150 liters of fake blood to provoke a reaction to the action.

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Fly solo

Or Kill rests on the shoulder of a young actor, Sarfira (July 12) The industry's most prolific actor Akshay Kumar takes over from Suriya, the actor who won a National Award for his role in the Tamil original Soorarai Pottru. Inspired by the life of Captain GR Gopinath who launched the low-cost airline Air Deccan against all odds, Sarfira andThe film is directed by Sudha Kongara, who also directed the Tamil original (she also won a National Award for her screenplay). Soorarai Pottru “Sarfira has reached a huge audience through OTT platforms, but I always wanted to see it on the big screen, and doing it in Hindi was the opportunity for that,” says Kongara, though comparisons with the original, which won five National Awards, are inevitable. “I hope Sarfira will be an anthem for the youth,” she told India Today.

Sarfira “The remake of ‘The Last Day’ comes with a change of geographical setting from Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra. I think each film will have something unique to offer because of the talent involved and the diverse cultural background,” says Kongara. We have also given special importance to the entrepreneurial journey and the dreamer spirit in the remake. It remains to be seen if Sarfira “Kongara is the game-changer film after a tough year for Kumar, whose films failed to take off at the box office. For Kongara, however, there was no better candidate than him to play the inspirational hero. He takes a different direction with a different emotional sensibility, a different individuality,” she says.

A return from the past

Kumars SarfiraHowever, will have to face the film with Kamal Haasan Hindustani: Zero Tolerance (July 12), which marks the return of freedom fighter-turned-vigilante Senapati (Haasan) after 28 years. Directed by Shankar, the sequel will see the angry old hero once again launch an intense battle against corruption, but this time in the age of social media. During a media interaction in Mumbai, Haasan, who has forayed into politics in the last few years, said voting is the best way to take action against corrupt politicians. Films like ours are just reminders of how corrupt we are, he said. Everything will change only with the collective consciousness. Haasan spent three to four hours in the make-up chair to play the cause-driven rebel who defies age when it comes to performing stunts. He has zero tolerance for those who are not committed to their art, said actor Siddharth, who is working with the veteran actor for the first time.

For Shankar, revisiting the 1996 film was always in the back of his mind until he came up with the idea after 2.0 (2018). It took a long time to decide what not to do, he says. The original was set in a single state, but the scale increases in the second part with an event that reverberates across the country and forced Shankar to split the film into two parts. With production having begun before the COVID-19 pandemic and after many delays, some necessitated by accidents on set, the film is finally hitting theatres with hopes of becoming a pan-India phenomenon, like the makers of Kalki 2898 AD aim.

Little surprises

If 2024 has proven anything so far, it's that success can come from the least expected titles. A wave of mid-budget films like Bad news (July 19), a comedy starring Vicky Kaushal, Ammy Virk and Triptii Dimri; Oulajh (August 2), a spy drama starring Janhvi Kapoor in the lead role; and the film directed by Vikrant Massey Sabarmati Report (also August 2), which looks set to become a controversial political drama, just like The Kashmir Files And History of Keralawill compete for eyeballs. Another certainty of this monsoon is that Part II of Streetwhich kicked off a horror-comedy boom after its smash hit theatrical release in 2018, is likely to be a safe bet for Bollywood. Releasing on what will be a packed Independence Day schedule with Veda (Jean Abraham) and I'm playing ((Akshay Kumar again), the audience is sure not to get bored.

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