Laal Singh Chaddha, Liger flop: Bollywood in the middle of another crisis

Ten minutes into watching Liger and Taran Adarsh knew the film was in trouble. "It was a very disjointed effort," says the well-known trade analyst and one who rarely holds back his words. This year has been quite forgettable for Bollywood with success being elusive and even the biggest of stars not bringing in the audience to the theatres.    The issue has now come to a point where producers are forced to compensate the distributors for losses (large in the case of a few films) incurred. “It is important to retain the goodwill and also ensure that the next film is bought. In a post-pandemic scenario, things have been difficult and there is a greater need for everyone across the chain to make money,” explains film producer and business analyst, Girish Johar.    News in the industry has been rife about the producers of recent failures such as Liger and Laal Singh Chaddha returning money to the distributors. In the case of Liger, its star Vijay Deverakonda is reported to have returned Rs 6 crore to the producer. On a budget of Rs 100 crore, the film, across languages, has recovered barely a third of it. Johar looks at the development to seriously overhaul the cost-structure in Bollywood, where high star fee has made most projects unviable. “We need to look at it from a point where cost-control and quality of content need to be addressed at the earliest. This is a symptom of a larger problem in the industry.”    Compensating the distributors is one part of the story but the more critical issue of increasing the success quotient remains. The festive season for Bollywood has started ominously, with each failure only increasing the pressure on the films to be released. From now, all the way to the new year, cutting through Diwali, are some big-budget films with prominent stars. Adarsh, who has seen many ups and downs through the decades spent tracking the industry, is worried. "The difference from the past is that even the films with top stars are not getting a decent box-office opening," he says. Taking care of the distributors is one part of the story. The larger one is in getting it right on everything else that goes into delivering a successful film. How Bollywood is going to get that right is a problem without a solution.