Bollywood is going through an existential crisis that it has never had before. In a nation where the most recent date for a U.S. visa interview is sometime in june 2024 and the top-end mahindra XUV700 has a waiting period extending up to february 2024, you can simply walk into a hindi film screening whenever you want to because no one is watching what is coming out of Bollywood.
Bollywood is facing the double whammy of its established stars all seeming to be well past their sell-by dates and its scriptwriters seeming to be completely out of touch with the paradigm shift in consumer preferences. With a loaded release calendar, starting with the VFX-heavy "Brahmastra" and going up to Shah Rukh Khan's much-anticipated "Jawan" (January 25, 2023) and the salman Khan-starrer "Tiger 3" (April 21, 2023)
Bollywood has been exposed for what it is worth by the failure of Aamir Khan's "Laal Singh Chaddha" and Akshay Kumar's "Raksha Bandhan," his third consecutive film. This happened during a five-day holiday weekend with no competition from the South. The message for fading stars couldn't be any clearer: either reinvent yourself, as "tragedy king" dilip kumar did with his comedic reinvention in the 1967 smash hit "Ram Aur Shyam" (which, interestingly enough in the context of what's going on right now, was the remake of the 1964 telugu film "Ramudu Bheemudu"), or accept the shame of going extinct.
Bollywood is facing the double whammy of its established stars all seeming to be well past their sell-by dates and its scriptwriters seeming to be completely out of touch with the paradigm shift in consumer preferences. With a loaded release calendar, starting with the VFX-heavy "Brahmastra" and going up to Shah Rukh Khan's much-anticipated "Jawan" (January 25, 2023) and the salman Khan-starrer "Tiger 3" (April 21, 2023)
Bollywood has been exposed for what it is worth by the failure of Aamir Khan's "Laal Singh Chaddha" and Akshay Kumar's "Raksha Bandhan," his third consecutive film. This happened during a five-day holiday weekend with no competition from the South. The message for fading stars couldn't be any clearer: either reinvent yourself, as "tragedy king" dilip kumar did with his comedic reinvention in the 1967 smash hit "Ram Aur Shyam" (which, interestingly enough in the context of what's going on right now, was the remake of the 1964 telugu film "Ramudu Bheemudu"), or accept the shame of going extinct.
