From Munjya to Srikanth, it's time Bollywood gave small budget films the respect they deserve

What is common to Avesham, Premalu, The boys of Manjummel, Aadujeevitham, Brahmayugam, Aranmanai4 And Hanu Man? All these South films were made on budgets ranging from Rs 10 crore to Rs 40 crore and were blockbusters, some even grossing over Rs 100 crore. While the South also has big films with stars, small and medium budget films have always been a part of the industry's oeuvre. They form its backbone and are what many filmmakers strive to achieve.

Moving on to Bollywood, where after a sort of renaissance in 2023, the industry is seeing itself disappear again this year. Big Hindi films like field, Bad Miyan Chote Miyan And Champion Chandu flopped at the box office, surprisingly well for filmmakers. In contrast, mid-budget films like Come towards me (30 million rupees), Article 370 (20 million rupees), Madgaon Express (Rs 30 crore) and Srikanth (Rs 45 crore) have turned out to be hits. Karan Johar and Guneet Monga's recent release, Killmade for just Rs 25 crore, is also doing very well at the box office, despite the Kalki 2898 AD mastodon.

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Despite all this, most producers have not lost their risk-taking attitude when it comes to signing stars and making big-budget films (Rs 80 crore and above). But is the box office giving them the results they expected? Unfortunately, no.

What the public wants

It is no secret that the Hindi film industry is going through a tough time this year. Many producers and companies have seriously started thinking about what needs to change.

In a recent interview, producer and director Karan Johar said that with the changing tastes of the audience and the high cost of production due to inflation, the Hindi film industry and filmmakers need to stop chasing trends and write new stories that are rooted in culture. “First of all, the tastes of the audience have become very specific. They want a certain kind of cinema. And if you (as a director) want to make a certain number of films, then your film has to be screened in A, B and C centres. Multiplexes alone will not do. At the same time, the cost of filmmaking has gone up. There has been inflation. There are about 10 viable actors in Hindi cinema, and they all ask for the sun, the moon and the earth. And then your film is no match. These film stars who ask for Rs 35 crore open at Rs 3.5 crore. How does that calculation work? How do you manage all that?” Yet you have to keep making films and creating content because you also have to feed your organization. So there is a lot of drama, and the syntax of our cinema has not found its place,” he said in the interview.

We cannot simply ignore cinema as a spectacle

Of the 1,000 films that release in India every year (across various film industries), most are small and medium budget films. Spectacle films are only a dozen or so. While they are important to the Hindi film industry and contribute significantly to the box office every year, smaller films are also needed to provide a continuous flow of content to distributors and sustain the business. Moreover, the risks for the producer are much lower: small and medium budget films are known to offer a significant return on investment. A producer, therefore, has to be strategic not only in terms of the number of films he finances each year, but also in terms of the budget.

If scale may matter, so does content. Southern film industries score six out of six when it comes to content. Small and medium budget films give more scope to filmmakers and screenwriters to experiment and be more creative with new themes, genres and storylines. Content-driven films are driving audiences to theatres, as seen in several states in India.

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This phenomenon was not new to the South film industry, nor to Bollywood. But over the last few decades, Hindi film producers started turning a blind eye, feeling that these films were not able to attract enough viewers to the theatres. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the rise of OTT platforms changed the game completely in India.

The Economics of the Film Industry

Director Gauravv Chawla, known for Adhura And bazaarsays: “Big budget films will always be there and should be. As an industry, we need these big films. But they are rare because of the time and scale it takes to make them and the risks involved in getting them done right. What is encouraging this year is the number of mid-budget films that have done well at the box office. This was the case even before the pandemic. We need to make sure we capitalize on this audience appreciation by creating more films where the content is the star, whether it’s comedy, drama, supernatural or romance. The more consistent the flow of these films, the better it will be for everyone – filmmakers, exhibitors, distributors and audiences.”

From a film distributor's perspective, it can be said that both big and small films have done well at the box office. Akshaye Rathi, a film exhibitor and distributor, says, “I think it is important that all kinds of films are made. Laapataaa Ladies And 12th failure have done well, they are very limited successes in terms of geographic impact. These are films that have done well in 15 to 20 major cities. For the entire exhibition sector in the country to sustain itself, you need big-budget films or blockbusters with great success like The bridge, Animal, Pathan And Jawan “This will enable the country's exhibition sector to hold its own. At the same time, it is important that mid-range and low-budget films fill the gap and maintain the score between the two films.”

A healthy mix

Ultimately, filmmakers in the Hindi film industry believe that a mix of films of all genres and budgets is necessary to satisfy the audience. As Rathi says, the more the Hindi film industry produces big-budget, big-budget action films, the more the audience will get tired. Poorly made films will also not be of much help to the industry. “We need all kinds of genres and styles of cinema co-existing so that there is something in the theatres at all times for every section of audience,” he adds.

In the 2000s, Hollywood had gone through a similar situation. Studios had consolidated their budgets to produce blockbuster films, and as a result, the number of smaller films had significantly decreased in their books. In 2013, predicting the end of this cycle, director Steven Spielberg had warned producers of an “implosion.” “There’s going to be an implosion where three or four, maybe half a dozen mega-budget films are going to crash, and that’s going to change the paradigm,” he said. Hollywood ultimately went through a shake-up back then. Recently, this cycle has resurfaced post-COVID-19, as Hollywood studios are competing for big blockbusters and mid-tier films are being released directly on OTT platforms.

Ultimately, cinema halls cannot survive on blockbusters alone, be it Hollywood or Bollywood. Perhaps it is time for the Hindi film industry to rethink its model.

(The author is a veteran entertainment journalist and film critic)

Disclaimer: These are the author's personal opinions.