Corporates kill creativity in bollywood

There was a boom in Bollywood some 6 years ago. This was due to the expansion of the markets. The markets opened up to England and America due to the increase of Indian population in those areas. And more than the increase in population, the Indian people in those places wanted to watch hindi films.

But they did not have access to it. Yash Raj films were the first people to attract the NRI audience by making a NRI based story DDLJ (dilwale dulhania le jayenge). Then the film ran very well in India. The VCD’s and VHS were very well marketed in other parts of the world. But the markets truly opened up when kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was released. It was released in many places outside India. (Now they are releasing DVD ) . And also satellite rights now fetch lot of money.

Due to the difference in value of tickets outside India, this acted as an advantage to the Indian producers. And with the markets doubling, they could recover the money very easily. And with the opening up of multiplexes in all metro cities, the film makers can recover their amount in a week.

This profit motive brought many corporate into film making to bollywood. The first entrant I think was the Pen video people. And they were followed by others. I think the biggest entrants were the eros and edlabs. Now almost one out of 4 films belong to eros and adlabs. And now Adlabs has been acquired by reliance. And reliance also holds BIG fm. Hence adlab’s songs are coming across all Big fm’s of major cities.

Big fm has been used by reliance to advertise its reliance phones and its mutual funds and insurance policies.

With all these corporates flowing in, they are not bothered about creativity. It has become common or adlabs , eros and Yash Rajs to sign in an artist for 3-4 films together. Dint you see Rani Mukherji repeatedly in Yash Raj Banner. And priety zinta doing Kal Ho Na Ho, Salam Namaste. And saif ali khan doing Kal ho na ho, Hum Tum, Salam Namaste etc. And latest Konkona sen doing aaja nachle and even laga chunari me dag. And Kunal kapoor doing aaja nachle and laaga chunari me daag.

When the actors have already been signed by the producers, where is the scope for the director to choose the correct actor to the role. And the director has to weave the story to suit those actors!

And now the formula seems to be.. sign a person who is riding high due to media hype. If there is no media hype for that person, go pay some money and create media hype for him! And make a hip hop type of song. And make a glamorous video with all types of African and American models and remix it. Play it repeatedly on Mtv. The main intention is to create a hype among the people unnaturally. Then release the film. Even if the film is worst and it runs for one week, it gains the money spent.

And if the film runs for 3 weeks, it is a hit! How can we consider Don film to be a hit? And now the definition of hit has changed. If the film sustains for 3-4 weeks at a theatre, it is a hit!

This doesn’t mean that creativity has completely died in bollywood. Some small film makers are making good efforts like Khosla Ka Gosla and Nagesh kukunoor movies. And the film Life in A metro was a totally different movie starring shilpa shetty and directed by some person I don’t remember his name :)