Indian Film Market Trend in 2019

Hindi Cinema The biggest production house in the country – Yash Raj Films – scored the biggest hit of the year: War. That was only to be expected, given that two big stars, Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff, were coming together in a big action extravaganza. (After a series of low-profile films, Hrithik had another hit in 2019, Super 30.) The biggest star – Salman Khan – had two films in the Top 10, Bharat and Dabangg 3. But neither film was considered an impressive performance, as the returns weren’t underwhelming in comparison with the huge sums the films cost to make and market.

Salman Khan is still the industry’s biggest star in terms of standing – because even an ‘underperformer’ like Bharat came in at No. 4. But in terms of box-office performance, the year’s biggest star was undoubtedly Akshay Kumar. The star, so far, has not had blockbusters in the range of the three Khans: Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir. But he is steadily catching up. In 2019, he had four films in the top ten. And what is remarkable is that these films were in four different genres.

Kesari, which does not appear in the Top 10 because it did not do as well worldwide as it did in India, is a historical action drama. It follows the events leading to the Battle of Saragarhi in 1897, which took place between 21 soldiers of the 36th Sikhs of the British Indian Army and 10,000 Afridi and Orakzai Pashtun tribesmen. Good Newwz was an upscale dramedy about two couples who go in for fertility treatment. Housefull 4 was a brain-dead comedy and a continuation of one the most successful film franchises in India. (Another instance of this phenomenon in the list is Total Dhamaal.) And Mission Mangal is the story of how the Indian Space Research Organisation pulled off the first interplanetary expedition to Mars.

In other words, people are willing to see Akshay Kumar in any kind of film. Then there was Gully Boy, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and went on to become a big hit in the metro centres. Because of the relatively high cost of tickets in the big metros of India, it is possible for a film to become a hit even if it does well only in these centres and underperforms in smaller towns and villages. Gully Boy is such a film. The soundtrack became a rage and the urban youth really connected with it. The film is yet another hit for young stars Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. And with the Khans and Akshay Kumar all being over 50, the industry really needs younger stars.

But the year’s biggest surprises were undoubtedly Kabir Singh and Uri - The Surgical Strike . The former starred Shahid Kapoor, one of the actors who has been around for a long time but without a major, career-defining hit. He finally got it with this melodra matic story of an angry man who pines for his woman. As for Uri - The Surgical Strike, it proved that well-made films with a patriotic angle will do well in these times. Like Mission Mangal, it told a rah-rah story about India, and connected to Indians across the country. It didn’t matter that the film’s hero, Vicky Kaushal, wasn’t a star. The real star was the nation.

Telugu Cinema The biggest film of the year was Saaho. It was big because it starred Prabhas in his first outing after the gigantically successful Baabubali films. It was big because of its budget, estimated at 3.5 billion INR. It was big because of its reach – it was filmed simultaneous ly in Telugu, Hindi and Tamil, and it was released in all three languages. And it was big because of its scope. It wanted to be a James Bond-meets-Mission: Impossible style adventure. The hype was equally big, but the box-office did not quite match expectations. (The film was, strangely, a big hit in the Hindi version.) Still, look at those numbers. At least in terms of earnings, it’s Telugu cinema’s biggest film of the year.

Release in multiple languages appears to have become the norm for expensive produc tions with big stars. Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy, the year’s second biggest grosser, was dubbed into Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil. But smaller- or mid-size films prefer to release only in one language, and then sell the rights to other languages depending on interest. Jersey, for instance, is currently being remade in Hindi, with Shahid Kapoor, who got the biggest hit of his career with Kabir Singh, a remake of the controversial Telugu hit, Arjun Reddy.

Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy was not as big a hit as anticipated, given the cast. (Even veteran Hindi superstar Amitabh Bachchan was roped in for a guest appearance.) But if it still became the year’s second biggest grosser, then it’s a testament to star Chiranjeevi’s longevity. Just imagine, his son, Ram Charan, is now a leading man on his own – and he has a film on this list, Vinaya Vidheya Rama. It made money but not enough to make the trade happy – and far less than his father’s film. Chiranjeevi started his career in the late1970s. Four decades later, he’s still a huge draw.

The other ‘old-timer’ on this list is the ageless Venkatesh. He started out in 1986. Three decades and running, he had two big hits in 2019. The first ( F2) came during the auspicious Sankranthi holiday, and the broad comedy became the biggest hit among the four films released during that period. Venky Mama was an action comedy that co-starred his nephew (and upcoming star) Naga Chaitanya. It was a medium grosser, but no one com plained. Naga Chaitanya had a bigger hit in Majili, which also starred his wife, Samantha Akkineni. It was about a cricketer battling psychological issues.

India’s most popular sport was also at the centre of Jersey, about a middle-aged cricketer attempting to make a comeback. (Both films also had the protagonists playing a father, which is a little unusual for actors this young.) Jersey was acclaimed as the better film, but though it did well, it suffered because it followed a similar sporting drama. Su perstar Mahesh Babu kept his superstardom intact with Maharshi, which was a good hit. But the smaller films in this list are the real successes. They cost less, so the returns on investment are greater. iSmart Shankar was a sci-fi thriller about a contract killer. Prati Roju Pandaage was a traditional family drama. In other words, the year in Telugu cinema was a mix of the old and the new.

Tamil Cinema The three biggest box-office stars (Wijay, Rajinikanth, Ajith) of Tamil Nadu delivered the year’s three biggest hits: Bigil, Petta and Viswasam. Or four, if you count Ajith’s Nerkonda Paarvai , too. What worked in at least two of these cases was pure formula. Stars become stars because people want them to be a certain way, walk a certain way, talk a certain way, light a cigarette a certain way. So, in film after film, they are essentially, they are essentially playing themselves. If the football-themed Bigil had Vijay playing... Vijay, Petta was made as an homage to Rajinikanth, incorporating key moments from many of his most memorable films.

But the year’s most interesting star was Ajith. Bigil had themes about women, too – for the protagonist was coaching a women’s football team, and had to tackle the problems each player had. But he was playing a ‘saviour’. In a sense, Viswasam and Nerkonda Paarvai were ‘saviour’ films, too – but the heroines had a much bigger role. In the former, Ajith was playing a man repenting for the pain he caused his wife – a very unusual theme for a big hero to take up. And the second film was even more unusual, where Ajith played a lawyer defending three women who have been assaulted. The film gave rise to various thoughts about the value of stars acting in these relatively different vehicles.

But at the end of the day, as mentioned earlier, people come to see stars being stars. That’s what Karthi did in his biggest hit, Kaithi. And that’s what Sivakarthikeyan did in his tearjerker drama, Namma Veettu Pillai. (His other big film of the year, Hero, flopped. Even though he played a superhero who empowers science-minded children, his usual stardom was missing.) Both these films combined action and sentiment in the measure audiences like, without pushing any major boundaries – though it must be said that Kaithi is the rare Tamil film where there’s no heroine and where there are no songs. Baby steps.

Three other films on the list came from stars, too, and Karthi’s older brother, Suriya, starred in two of them: Kaappaan and NGK. Neither of them were considered hits, but they made enough money to prove the industry thinking: “Even a hero’s flops make more money than a lesser-known actor’s hits.” NGK was really one of the more interesting films of the year, but the irony was that it needed someone who was not a popular hero, someone who could go against an image and play a negative character convincing ly. Suriya was super-convincing, but the audience did not wasn’t to see him this way.

Asuran had a star in Dhanush, who has the best acting range amongst today’s actor-stars. He is also the rare stars who can get away playing a range of roles, like an old man here. But for all this, the big news is the film that stands at No.4. It had no stars. (The best-known name is the director, Raghava Lawrence.) However, its smashing success proved that Tamil audiences will never tire of stories with ghosts and exorcists. It cost the least money of the lot and it made back the most. Sometimes, who needs stars?

Baradwaj Rangan

Baradwaj Rangan is a National Award–winning film critic and editor, Film Companion (South). His writings on cinema, music, art, books, travel and humour have been published in various national magazines like Open, Tehelka, Biblio, Outlook and Caravan. He has co-written the screenplay for the Tamil romcom, Kadhal 2 Kalyanam. He has contributed to various anthologies, including an essay in Subramaniyapuram: The Tamil Film in English Translation, and an analysis of Rajkumar Hirani in Behind the Scenes: Contemporary Bollywood Directors and their Cinema. His first book, Conversations with Mani Ratnam, was published by Penguin in 2012. His second book, Dispatches From the Wall Corner, was published by Westland in 2014.