“It is never the film but the budget of the film that fails at the box office”, Subhash Ghai said as he shared his opinion on Hindi films struggling at box office in 2024.
Compared to Pathaan Gadar 2, Jawan, and Animal earning more than Rs 500 crore net in India last year, this year we haven’t had even one Bollywood film that had gone past Rs 250 crore net mark in the first five months. As Hindi films continue to struggle at the ticket windows, veteran director and producer Subhash Ghai has said that not films, but their budgets fail at the box office.
Talking to ETimes, the Taal director stated, “It is never the film but the budget of the film that fails at the box office. In star-cast films, apart from star prices, it is a script that follows the star’s image rather than the story itself. Every story decides its scale and cost of production and even suitable actors. The alluring entry of stars changes the whole scale of the script with big songs, actions, locales, and other aspects. When we enlarge the scale of a small, good story just because of the star’s draw at the box office in the initial weeks, it goes haywire.”
Sharing his opinion on why small-budgeted films such as 12th Fail and The Kashmir Files became successful, Ghai added, “The Kashmir Files, The Kerala Story, 12th Fail, and Shaitaan made good dividends because of good stories and viable budgets.” He also talked about Jawan and Animal breaking records as he stated, “Star-cast films also run when the stars follow stories, as in the case of Animal and Jawan. Some stories do demand stars, but producers must take care of the stories first during the making of the film.”
Talking about his own film production company Mukta Arts Limited, the filmmaker concluded, “We at Mukta Arts produced films like Aitraaz and Iqbal, and both were in budgets that were true to the stories, and it paid everyone. We produced 45 films, and I directed 18 movies, all with suitable budgets as per our stories. At Mukta Arts, we made 37 hits out of 45 at the box office.”
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