At the box office, Bollywood faces a horror show

Mumbai: As streaming services and competitors who do not speak Hindi steal its shine, India's Bollywood film industry, which has long been a part of the cultural fabric of the movie-obsessed nation of 1.4 billion people, is experiencing its worst-ever crisis. 

The South Asian superpower, which produces more movies than any other nation on earth on average each year, is usually led by glamorous Bollywood, where audiences swarm premieres and fans revere actors like gods. But after Covid limits were loosened, movie theatres have been more quiet, even in Mumbai, the hub of Bollywood.

Manoj Desai, a seasoned Mumbai theatre owner, "this is the greatest crisis we have ever encountered." Because "the public was not there," some screenings were cancelled.

Akshay Kumar, a megastar who often does well financially, had three consecutively bad films. Aamir Khan, a fellow A-lister who has been in some of India's most popular movies, failed to draw in viewers with the Forrest Gump remake Laal Singh Chaddha.

Just one-fifth of the more than 50 Bollywood films released in the past year—fewer than usual due to the pandemic—have met or exceeded revenue goals, according to Elara Capital media analyst Karan Taurani. Prior to the epidemic, it was 50%.

In contrast, a number of Telugu-language films, sometimes known as Tollywood films, a south Indian rival to Hindi-language Bollywood, have achieved great success.

In contrast, a number of Telugu-language films, sometimes known as Tollywood films, a south Indian rival to Hindi-language Bollywood, have achieved great success.

According to a recent analysis by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economist at State Bank of India, it is embarrassing that from January 2021 to August of this year, about half of the Hindi-language films' box office receipts were dubbed southern productions.

After decades of narrative, Ghosh said that "Bollywood seems to be at an inflection point unlike any earlier upheaval it has faced."

'Out-of-touch'

Bollywood has suffered from the rise of streaming, which began before the pandemic but took off when millions of Indians were compelled to stay indoors, just like other film industries.

A government estimate states that 96 million people in India have subscriptions to streaming services, including major foreign companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ Hotstar.

While some movies published during the Covid shutdown were immediately available on these platforms, others only had a few weeks to wait until they were available on television.

Price-sensitive people were leaving theatres since streaming monthly subscriptions cost less than or are equivalent to the price of a single ticket - 100-200 rupees ($1.20-$2.50) at single-screen movies and higher at multiplexes, according to analysts.

Because of the difficult economic climate, INOX and PVR, two of the largest multiplex operators in India, announced their merger in March in order to "build scale."

Meanwhile, subscribers were exposed to regional and international streaming content, including southern Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada films that already had hordes of ardent local fans.

"Regional film did not spread outside of its bounds. You realise that there are filmmakers telling more fascinating stories when suddenly everyone was watching Malayalam or Maharashtrian movies "Raja Sen, a film critic, stated.

They become less impressed when they see a Hindi blockbuster with a celebrity that is merely a rehash of a tale they have already heard a million times.