It’s raining superstars
at the box office this festive season. It all started with Salman Khan’s
Dabangg for the double whammy weekend of Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. Barely did
that buzz die down, that it was time for the uber-superstar Rajnikanth to show
the world what fan hysteria truly is about – 5:00am shows, tickets at thrice
their usual price (and not even in black) and theaters still getting sold out
within minutes of opening of advance booking. While the rest of the nation had
time to get stunned and stay that way after Endhiran/Robot, Hyderabad had to
pick itself up, dust itself off, and get in line for tickets to Khaleja. For
Mahesh ‘Prince’ Babu was back in theaters after three long years, and online
ticketing websites had suitably crashed as a mark of respect.
There’s nothing quite
like mainstream mega movies to get the holiday mood going. Their appeal is
infectious, and cuts across the social spectrum, taking over casual conversations
everywhere - from street corner paan shops and irani cafés to fancy Baristas
and office water coolers. The buzz usually starts with sneak peek trailers, but
more hardcore movie buffs don’t wait that long – posters and stills are good enough
to get them going. The first poster of Mani Ratnam’s Raavan was analyzed by
bloggers down to the title font size, while Salman’s new look for Dabangg made
waves on twitter way before any poster was even released. Rajni films are on a whole
other plane altogether when it comes to anticipation – a mere announcement of
his film is all it takes to send fans into a tizzy.
Our mainstream filmmakers
don’t get nearly enough credit for the ridiculously high, and deceptively
simple ‘paisa vasool’ expectations they take on. It would seem that anyone with
a budget and half a brain could pull off a mass entertainer – the formula is
simple after all - 5 songs, 4 fights, an item number, a few ‘punch’ dialogues,
a couple of emotional scenes and a comedy track. But we’ve seen the formula
fall flat enough times to know that it takes serious talent and nerves of steel
to handle all the pressure and deliver on that nebulous ‘paisa vasool’ promise.
Over the last few years,
as multiplexes morphed movie economics, we’ve seen far fewer of these
traditional mainstream entertainers with pan-India appeal, especially from the
Hindi film industry. With filmmakers segmenting audiences into niche
categories, we’ve been getting NRI flicks, chick flicks, dude flicks,
psychedelic flicks and all manner of sub-genre flicks, leading to the fear that
the genre-encompassing Great Indian Masala Film might be a dying art. But the
smashing success of Ghajini, Wanted and now Dabangg, has made it amply clear
that India still loves a good old masala entertainer.
With Dussehra and Diwali
round the corner, there’s a string of big releases lined up. NTR Jr.’s Brindaavanam
is the big Dussehra release from the Telugu film industry. The other much
awaited Telugu release is Ram Gopal Varma’s controversial Rakta Charitra with
Surya and Vivek Oberoi. For Diwali, Bollywood has Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya
Rai going retro with Action Replayy, and Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor and company
going slapstick with Golmaal 3. And then comes Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s
Guzaarish, followed by Ashutosh Gowarikar’s independence era film Khelein Hum
Jee Jaan Se. Topping it all off on Christmas eve would be Farah Khan’s Tees
Maar Khan. So there you have it, the potential blockbusters of 2010, although
the biggest blockbusters of this year are likely behind us already. Anticipation
is half the fun, so go check out the promos and enjoy the buzz.
---
wrote this for channel6, hyderabad.
