2009 Bollywood: The year of strike, big flops and small hits

The no-show by several big budget movies coupled with a two month-long stand-off between producers and multiplexes owners amid recession made 2009 a year which Bollywood producers and cinegoers would like to forget.
  
Some 138 films were released this year, Kumar Mohan, editor of Complete Cinema, a trade magazine told PTI. The year started badly with Chandni Chowk to China tanking at the box office despite the hype.

The other major flops of the year were Akshay Kumar starrer Tasveer, Blue, Delhi-6, London Dreams, Main Aur Mrs Khanna, Luck, Amitabh Bachchan starrer Aladin", Kurban and What's Your Rashee?.

Films like Wanted, Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani, New York and Love Aajkal were the only hits of 2009. However, the industry had some respite with Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots, which released on Christmas and is on its way to become a blockbuster.

Amitabh Bachchan's 'Paa', where the actor played the role of a 13-year-old child, has recovered its costs even though it has done well only in the metro cities. Films like All the Best, Wake Up Sid!, and Dev D and Kambakkht Ishq were average grossers. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh told PTI that 2009 was the worst year in the recent history of Bollywood.

"Apart from the producer-multiplexes issue where no films were released for two months, recession, elections, there were too many bad films which the audiences did not take kindly," Adarsh said adding that many films were pulled out of theatres due to lack of audiences after the swine flu spread.

Manmohan Shetty, president of the Film and Television Producers Guild of India (FTPGI) said the Hindi film industry needs to look into reducing production costs, steep star prices and stopping the trend of multiple star deals to bring order in the system.

"We should also take steps to improve the single screen business," Shetty said. Shetty, who pioneered the multiplex revolution in the country with IMAX, said single screen cinemas, instead of improving their infrastructure to meet the challenge of multiplex theatres, simply closed down.

"By doing this, we are stopping people who wish to see films in theatres from going there. Not many audiences would like to shell out Rs1500 to watch a film every week. Piracy gets a boost in this manner," Shetty said.

Sidharth Roy Kapur, CEO of UTV Motion Pictures admitted that 2009 was a tough year for the industry. "Major dent was due to the strike. But, it was evident and will help the producer in the long run," he said.

"After a drought of three months where no film was released due to the producer-multiplexes stand off, many movies were bunched up and big-budget films were released almost every week eating into each others revenues," Kapur told PTI.  Kapur said the realisation from a theatrical run for the producer increased from 40 to 42 per cent to 46-47 per cent.

"Producers got their say in release of the movies unlike the previous trend of sending prints to all the multiplexes which was not a wise distribution strategy," he said. Kapur, however, is confident that 2010 will be better in terms of content and feels that film releases will be spread out which will allow each one to grow and recover costs.

Industry experts say that some of the issues plaguing the Indian entertainment industry are supply of irrational investment leading to unsustainable cost structures, severe shortage of creative and management talent, lack of transparency in production spending as well as revenue collection, piracy and high taxation rates.

Lack of original quality content, for example, is one of the main reasons for 95 per cent box office failure rate of Indian films. Kumar Mohan said the movies which did good business at the box office this year were "fun films".

"The trend is mixed. If Wanted was an action thriller, Ajab Prem was a romantic comedy, Love Aaj kal was a love story while New York had a background of 9/11 and terrorism," he said, adding that even though Saif-Kareena starrer Kurbaan had a backdrop of terrorism, it did not do well.

Trade sources say early 2010 will see release of films like Ramgopal Verma's Amitabh starrer Rann , Salman Khan's Veer and Shah Rukh Khan's My name is Khan. "These are big budgeted films and the industry has high hopes on these movies to make the cash registers at the box office ringing," he said.