Taran Adarsh, a well-known film critic and trade analyst, bluntly says for the Hindi film industry the first half of 2023 has been "very disappointing." As many as 52 films were released but only three struck it big at the box-office. The biggest of them has been the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer, Pathaan, Jio Studios’ Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, a comedy drama and the Vipul Shah-produced, The Kerala Story.
What has stood out, and unfortunately so, is that the big ones did not work. "That was a shocker," is Adarsh's view. That list includes Salman Khan's Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, Akshay Kumar's Selfiee, Ajay Devgn’s Bholaa and Kartik Aaryan's Shehzada.
From a more strategic point of view, Girish Johar, producer and film business expert, maintains the first half was characterised by a lack of cohesion in the industry. "It is necessary to have films released at regular intervals. However, the critical months of May and June coinciding with the summer holidays saw no releases with the big star," he says. In terms of numbers, that period had 13 films hitting the theatres or a quarter of the total released between January and June. "A huge window of an opportunity has been missed. It is like bowling a maiden over in the last five overs of the IPL."
That's not all. The first half saw films being bunched together – as many as four each were released on March 24, May 5, May 19 and June 23. "You are shooting yourself in the foot. Now, there will be a lot of pressure in the second half and that is completely self-created," says Johar. Having too many releases on the same weekend splits the audience and that can only dampen the potential collection at the box-office. "Movie watching is often a decision taken on an impulse and if you split the audience, it is a bad idea."
At a time like this, optimism is the name of the game. Adarsh says there are couple of interesting films like Satyaprem Ki Katha scheduled for release; this will be followed by Akshay Kumar’s OMG 2, Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan and Salman Khan’s Tiger 3. "We have also seen the big success of The Kerala Story (net collection of Rs 242 crore in the domestic market and another Rs 16 crore overseas) which had no stars and then you have films with big stars bombing. At the end of the day, it only confirms that content is king and the audience is the kingmaker," he thinks. That is worth a thought.