2023 has been a great year for Bollywood. The box office lull that followed the Covid-19 pandemic is finally history with Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan setting a precedent in January this year. Following suit, Gadar 2, Jawan and Animal wrecked havoc at the box office, shattering old records and setting new trends. Amid these extravagant actioners, there were a bunch of mid-budget films – like Dream Girl 2, Zara Hatke Zara Bachke and 12th Fail – that slowly but steadily made their way to the top and became money spinners.
Made on a budget of Rs 35 crore, Ayushmann Khurrana’s Dream Girl 2 earned nearly Rs 170 crore at the domestic box office. A sleeper hit, Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan’s Zara Hatke Zara Bachke was made on Rs 40 crore and had a nett collection of Rs 88 crore. Vikrant Massey’s 12th Fail was made with Rs 20 crore and grossed Rs 64 crore worldwide. Rani Mukerji’s Mrs Chatterjee VS Norway, Vidyut Jammwal’s IB71 and Fukrey 3 also minted decent numbers and smoothly recovered their budgets.
News18 Showsha exclusively speaks to trade experts who weigh in with their opinions on how the unprecedented success of these smaller gems has changed the game and challenged the status quo as far as the domestic box office trends go.
For producer and film business expert Girish Johar, while the success of big-ticket films are important to drive in more audiences and revenues that can help churn out more profitable projects going ahead, it’s equally significant for smaller films to fare well to help achieve equilibrium. “I’m of the opinion that for the entire fraternity to flourish, the big ones have to work at the box office but it’s also the mid-budget films that need to consistently do well. If you look back at 2018 and 2019, those were the best years for the Hindi film industry because the mid-budget films and the ones Ayushmann was doing performed fantastically well as they crossed Rs 70-80 crore. So, the criticality of the year depends on mid-budget films.”
He further explains, “If a few such films do well, makers will churn out more of them. This year, even 1920: Horrors Of The Heart did well commercially in certain centres despite being a small film. These are good signs for the normalcy of the box office to return in this post-pandemic era.”
Alluding to the cliche that content is king, trade expert Komal Nahta points out that a film made with honesty will always resonate with the audience and it is this relativity quotient that has led Zara Hatke Zara Bachke and Dream Girl 2 to work wonders. “It’s not the budget or the scale that is working at the box office. It’s the script, the honesty and the sincerity of the entire team that may work or fail depending on the effort put in making the film,” he states.
Nahta also believes that music indeed plays an important role in elevating a script and this applies to mid-budget films too. “Apart from content, there are various other factors like music which in the case of Zara Hatke Zara Bachke worked well for the movie. I believe it has to be the right combination of everything that can justify a smart budget,” he remarks.
For another trade analyst Atul Mohan, most of the mid-budget films that worked this year were part of popular franchises and he attributes their box office victory to the recall value. “Dream Girl 2, OMG 2 and Fukrey 3 had good content but what also worked in their favour was that they were all a part of successful franchises. We also had some interesting films like Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, IB71 and Farrey which were appreciated by the audience as they could connect with the story.”
Word-of-mouth is another reason why some of the smaller films could travel and find their own audience. Elaborating on the same, Mohan continues, “The other factor that worked for all these medium-budget films was word-of-mouth. The audience has become sensible and they’re no longer falling into the trap of critics’ ratings. People want to watch good cinema and that is why many of these films have done well at the box office.”
Not only has these success stories set new business norms but has also propelled the likes of Ayushmann, Vicky, Sara and Vikrant to the big league like never before. Agreeing with how this is ‘a heartening sign for the fraternity’, Johar says, “Vicky and Ayushmann are the ones turning around small concepts and the template of loveable family films and making them big. They’re front-leading it. But there are others too. The good part is that if you act well, the audience is willing to buy tickets just to watch you at the cinema. This industry is obviously star-driven but if a film is well-made and its content is liked by the audience irrespective of the actors starring in it, there’s nothing stopping those films,” he remarks.
While he acknowledges the commercial standing of the aforementioned actors, he reiterates that casting them still doesn’t guarantee more footfall or a sure-shot hit. “I agree that actors like Vicky Kaushal and Ayushmann Khurrana have all become bankable actors. They have given some big hits at the box office. But they still need to justify the cost that a producer is spending on the budget of the film,” asserts Nahta.
Mohan, on the other hand, has a different opinion. For him, an actor’s bankability is a jaded concept, which brings him back to the fact that their popularity has no bearing on the project they do and it cannot take precedence over the script. “Ayushmann, Vicky and Kartik have all surely made a mark for themselves, but at the same time, I believe no actor is bankable today. I wouldn’t like to take any names but there are many big superstars whose films didn’t do good business this year. So, it completely depends on the kind of script that you select. But I believe all the actors in the new generation are making some interesting choices.”
The businesses raked in by Dream Girl 2, Zara Hatke Zara Bachke and 12th Fail have paved the path for several projects being made on a similar budget to perform well, according to Johar. “I’m really looking forward to 2024 with respect to mid-budget films. Such films doing well imply that the audience is alive and kicking and aren’t only looking forward to watching big-budget extravagant entertainers. Mid-budget films have less cost involved and so, the chances in the increase in its ROI and hence profitability is more,” he states on a parting note.
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