The 100-crore Club

If the consumer is the mass audience and if the industry is entertainment, it is hard to predict which movie
will be accepted by the audience and which will receive britbacks.

So far as the performance of the movies at the box office
in 2008 is concerned, different permutations of entertainment ingredients seemed to work. Now with Aamir Khan’s Ghajini raking in quite a big moolah at the box-office, it is worthwhile to think the various forces that are going to decide the course of events in 2009.

While the trade analysts feel that recession is slowly fading away to the background, some argue that there are certain other factors which act as essential parameters to the success or failure of a film. On whether action films have made a comeback of their sorts, trade analyst Komal Nahta says, “Action, in fact, never lost its fervour. What the audience probably was missing was good action films. We are receiving quite good reports from Chandi Chowk to China.” However, according to Nahta one can’t say with certainty that 2009 will be the year of action flicks. “The previous year saw a pot pourri of genres, romantic comedy, thriller, young romantic movies, and also films like Ghajini and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi doing quite well. I think 2009 will be no different. There will be many experiments,” says Nahta.

What seems to work the most when it comes to reaping bumper crop at the BO, according to trade analyst Taran Adarsh is “the complete package. A movie has to be a complete entertainer as how a movie is package with all the necessary ingredients to make it appealing to the likes of the desi audience is quite important.”
On the other hand, filmmaker Onir is of the opinion that there are other forces which also affect the Bo sales. “For a filmmaker and its crew, to some extent the BO collection is important. Moreover, actors and production houses bank on the collection results to evaluate a director. The circumstances also are a major issue. For example, Sorry Bhai was a disaster and I am struggling to break even with the losses. The terror attacks turned the public attention to other issues and this affected a lot of films. The target audience was engrossed in participating in processions and debates.”

That the record that Ghajini is created is unparalleled so far according to BO figures. “The only film that comes close is Gadar—Ek Prem Katha which had raked in a gross of Rs 250 crore. Ghajini is estimated to record a gross sales of Rs 220 crores,” says Nahta.

Whether it is an action packed thriller or a romantic saga, as long as the movies are replete with the entertainment quotient, they work wonders at the BO.