So, what’s new?
In the supersized world of big-budget, big-star, big-everything mainstream Hindi moviedom, not much, by the looks of it. If you want new, look South. Filmmakers from the South seem to be doing some good stuff with their stars. This isn’t just an opinion. The numbers (gathered from Ormax Media) have spoken, even if they can be contested by other such sources.
From January to March 2025 (during which Holi and Eid-ul-Fitr were celebrated), the highest-grossing film in India was Chhaava, hitting Rs 691 crore till that point. It’s a Hindi film about Maratha pride, perhaps a bit historically dubious, but if it’s a good yarn, why let facts come in the way? That logic is not restricted only to movies these days. But after Chhaava, there are only two Hindi films (up to March) in the top ten: Sky Force (Rs 130 crore) and Sikandar (Rs 122 crore). Neither film appears to have been able to keep the momentum going and were anyway made on massive budgets, with Akshay Kumar headlining Sky Force and Salman Khan starring in Sikandar. Big enough grossers, then, but probably not massive hits in terms of return on investment.
The rest are all from southern India. Primarily Telugu. There’s Sankranthiki Vasthunam, Game Changer, Daaku Maharaaj and Thandel: all Telugu. L2: Empuraan, with or without the Censor Board’s scissors, is the lone Malayalam representative there. Tamil films score two spots: Dragon and Vidaamuyarchi.
In March, the festive month, when Salman Khan, the big Eid hero, released Sikandar, a film whose budget is rumoured to be in the Rs 200-crore region, L2: Empuraan, reportedly the most expensive Malayalam film ever made, was the bigger grosser at Rs 129 crore to Sikandar’s Rs 122 crore. Sikandar hasn’t picked up steam since. L2: Empuraan is the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever. Only one other Hindi film, Diplomat, figured in the top ten in March with Rs 46 crore. The rest—with the Gujarati All the Best, Pandya at Rs 14 crore, the outlier—were Telugu and Tamil. Chhaava had had its run.
To be fair to Sikandar, Eid was at the end of March. But as an April 7 report in Hindustan Times said, “Sikandar is not Salman’s worst-faring film on Eid, but it is closer to the bottom than it is to the top […] It has diminished to single-figure earnings at the box office now, returning just 8-9% occupancy over the weekdays.”
Those are the facts, but what do they tell us?
The mainstream Hindi film industry is currently—one might argue this has always been the case—trapped in a mess of its own making. Superstars who avoid risk; film-makers who, because of the box-office circumstances, look for stars to raise the budgets, sell their films, play the distribution game right. In short, promotion and marketing are key: Jo dikhta hai, woh bikta hai (What you see is what you buy). All with exceptions, of course. The marketers do their job all right, but “good advertising kills a bad product faster”—as true an advertising maxim as there can be. Away from that quagmire, there’s the OTT world. Films become big when they draw viewers to the theatre to watch them. With the abundance of good content—Indian, non-Indian—a remote click away, that pull is indisputably weaker today. A film will stream on one of these platforms soon anyway.
There’s more to OTT. It provides space for smaller films, non-mega stars, non-big film-makers. And there seems to be an audience for it: people who might not spend money at a theatre for these non-glitzy films, but are more than happy to watch them at home.
So, as the ad gurus might ask: where is the next big idea?
Since 2014, the big idea seems to have been Hindu nationalism. Ghar mein ghus ke maarenge, and all that. Akshay Kumar, chiefly, and Vicky Kaushal have made a career out of it. They are not the only ones though. Some of these films work, some don’t. Chhaava is an example of a nationalistic film that worked, very well. As did Tanhaji-The Unsung Warrior (2020), another film about Maratha pride with possible factual inaccuracies. Obvious fact: a large percentage of the Hindi film viewership—in the 30 to 40 per cent region—historically comes from Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is a part.
Toilet-A Prem Katha was another film that did well. Ram Setu and Samrat Prithviraj, among many others, didn’t. That will continue to be the case, perhaps more an indication of what’s available and what the really big actors are starring in, rather than the audience’s movie of choice.
The distribution game plays a role, too. The big players have always been able to book more exhibition slots, and push out ‘smaller’ films. Sidelining the smaller films isn’t necessarily the objective, but a by-product of the game. They ensure that their films are the only ones people can watch, which in turn gives them a fair shot at box-office success. That’s why you hear stories about makers of not-so-big films trying to avoid releasing their films when the major stars’ films are scheduled.
The other shiny new idea is not new at all: the great villain. Pakistan, specifically, and Muslims in general. Or an Indian businessman or politician or some such working against India’s interests. Maybe one day soon, China will be a regular in this role. But getting them to say “Hindustan ki tabaahi” (destruction of India) might take some doing.
The unfortunate thing is that this trend of films moving with the (political) times is not new. Starting from the cinema of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, aligned to the Nehruvian Socialism of the era, to DevAnand’s pre-underworld big-city-underbelly noir, to Amitabh Bachchan’s angry-at-the-promise-of independence-gone- wrong formula, to the post-liberalisation, let’s-go-global DDLJ or KKHH, it was always a reflection of the times we lived in, films portraying the political zeitgeist. Today, it’s India on (hypernationalist) speed, and Pakistan is still vile, increasingly so, with recent events perhaps ensuring that this won’t change in a hurry. Even Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan and Jawan had people with anti-India designs playing the bad guys.
What we need, is a shake-up. It would be naive to think that producers will stop playing the distribution game or that stars will start taking risks—sure, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan have, and continue to do so, but even they have shown no signs that they would go anywhere as far as someone like, say, Malayalam superstar Mammootty, has of late. It has to be a shake-up that goes beyond the emergence of new platforms like OTT, which the IT Rules of 2021 have adequately tamed. What that is, is anybody’s guess.
Malayalam and Tamil cinema have reinvented themselves. So, movies that aren’t entirely formulaic have become mainstream hits, like Kumbalangi Nights, Minnal Murali and Manjummel Boys. Or seemingly formulaic movies are made to do a double shift, like Pa Ranjith’s Sarpatta Parambarai or Vetrimaaran’s Asuran. The biggest Telugu and Kannada films have done formula in ways ‘Big Bollywood’ can only copy, or fail trying.
For the counterpoint, we must turn to Dinesh Vijan, arguably the most successful producer in the industry today. He takes on everything. He does Chhaava, he does Stree 2, he does Munjya; he works with big stars and with relative unknowns, and he seems to pull it off. So, when he says—“I don’t believe there’s a ‘takeover’ by southern cinema. Since the pandemic, the Hindi film industry has seen remarkable successes”—in an interview with Bollywood Hungama, we must take him seriously. It’s certainly true of the work he has done. And he’s also on point when he says, “What truly matters is giving audiences something fresh and unique—exactly what these films have delivered. Instead of viewing southern film and Hindi films as separate entities, we should embrace them as part of one Indian film industry.” The key, as Vijan says, “is to craft stories that resonate with a large, diverse audience”.
In the end, it must come down to good storytelling. Think Kantara. A non-star, non-Hindi blockbuster. Or a star vehicle like Fahadh Faasil’s Aavesham. Or Vijay Sethupathi’s Tamil blockbusters. Now there’s an actor that Hindi film-makers are making a beeline for even if he can just about speak the language.
The Hindi film industry isn’t dead, nor is it dying. But it could definitely do with some freshness. Safe must go. Or be dialled down. Stars don’t guarantee returns, even if they help clinch wider distribution, promotion and glitz. This may be stating the obvious, but what really works—and the OTT channels are proof of this—are good stories and good storytelling. Think Farzi, Paatal Lok, Family Man, Sacred Games, Jubilee…On the big screen, think Tumbaad after the film was re-released.
The biggest grossers aren’t necessarily the biggest successes, because they are made with massive budgets. What works for the mega stars, the Khans especially, is the wait. They have started to make their fans wait for the next releases—Pathaan and Jawan releasing soon after one another wasn’t ideal, and was an exception, but it worked. Again, the wait. Shah Rukh Khan had only done special appearances in films between Zero in 2018 and Pathaan in 2023. Jawan and Dunki came in 2023 too.
But wait. Later this year, we should get Housefull 5, Baaghi 4, De De Pyaar De 2, Jolly LLB 3 (where the makers have realised Akshay Kumar needs Arshad Warsi to make the good idea work), Love and War and Border 2 as well as Aamir Khan’s Sitaare Zameen Par, perhaps a risk-averse response to the debacle that was Laal Singh Chaddha. Shah Rukh Khan’s next film appears to be King, with Pathaan 2 somewhere on the horizon. And Salman Khan’s next films are reportedly Dabaang 4, Tiger vs Pathaan and Kick 2.
Looks quite safe, and dire, doesn’t it, this dependence on endless sequels and franchise films? So, what’s new? Not a lot, it would seem.
(Views expressed are personal)
Shamya Dasgupta Writes on sports & cinema. He has curated and edited the forthcoming Ritwik Ghatak-An Anthology of Essays
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This article is part of 해외카지노’s 1 June 2025 issue, 'Gated Neighbourhood', which examines the state of diplomacy, media, and democracy in the wake of the ceasefire. It appeared in print as 'Begin Again.'
