AskIndicine: Bollywood QnA

More than 450 questions, so here we go..

Q. Why public response for Fitoor is so disastrous?

A. It’s because the appeal of such films is niche. Even metro city audience aren’t too excited about watching arty films in theatre. They wait for critic or social media reviews to find out if it’s worth a watch. Unfortunately for Fitoor and the industry, the response to the film was very poor. It scored 2.3 on our critic review scale, when such films usually need to get better reviews than what Airlift got.

Q. What will be the opening day collection of FAN? – Monu

A. It would depend on several factors like release size, theatrical trailer, music etc. 20 crore plus opening will be considered excellent for a film like FAN. Our first FBO prediction will be out as soon as the trailer is out, so stay tuned for that.

Q. Why the collection of Airlift is just 120 crore, with positive word of mouth, good review and more hype?

A. The lifetime collections of Airlift is excellent (which is 125 crore and not 120 crore). It should be compared to other off-beat films like Talaash and not commercial films like Rowdy Rathore or Dilwale. It’s the genre that limited the box office prospects of the film. It has little or no appeal outside 25 odd cities.

Q. Which hero till today has delivered the highest number of hits starting way back from Dilip Kumar or even before?

A. Such questions need a more detailed analysis, something which we cannot do in live QnA’s. It should be Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar with 35 and Shah Rukh Khan with 32 successful films at the top of the list. SRK has the best success ratio as he has done fewer films than Salman. Akshay has done 100 plus films, compared to Salman’s 70 plus and SRK’s 55 plus. We need to analyse Amitabh Bachchan’s career for a more detailed answer.

Q. When will Sultan’s teaser or trailer be released?

A. The shoot is still in progress so it’s way too early to discuss the teaser / trailer release. Even the makers wouldn’t know the date as of now. The trailer might come out sometime in May. They might release a teaser earlier.

Q. What is the total nett collections of Baahubali in India ? (All versions Hindi+Tamil+Telugu) What is the total Worldwide Collections of Baahubali?

A. The domestic collections of Baahubali, according to the makers of the film, crossed the Rs 500 crore figure (gross). The worldwide gross is said to be in the Rs 610 crore range.

Q. What do you think about Shahrukh Khan’s career in past 5 years. After My Name Is Khan his movies failed to achieve critical acclaim? – Rishabh

A. Critical acclaim is not important. Very few films that are loved by the critics, go on to do well at the box office. What’s important is doing films that the audience like. And today, the audience wants a film that has a good story to tell and also has entertainment value.

Q. In terms of fan base who is a bigger star among these.. Salman, SRK, Akshay, Aamir, Hrithik and Ajay? – Satyajit

A. Salman and SRK are the top stars, as far as fan-following is concerned. Salman leads in India and SRK edges him out overseas. You can see from the craze that even their Bigg Boss appearance generates, or for that matter the craze around their birthdays both amongst the audience, fans that gather outside their house and the media coverage that it gets.

Q. Who will be number one hero in next 5 years. When Khans will be not in contention as their age does not permit to be hero?

A. Khans (with all due respect, does not include Zayed, Fardeen and co) have lasted way longer than they themselves would have hoped to. Salman and Aamir are probably at the peak of their popularity and could sustain their stardom for many more years. Rajnikanth is still the top star in the Tamil film industry, romances heroines almost a third his age (Amy Jackson is 24, Rajni is 65). As they get older, it’s all about spacing films out and finding suitable scripts. It’ll be interesting to see if they move on to work with the next generation of top female stars.

As for who is the next big star.. it could be anyone. Ranveer are Varun are currently leading the race, but things could change with one or two flops, like it has with Ranbir. Becoming the top star in Bollywood and establishing your following is like running a marathon. It takes time, patience and a lot of hard work. Even Hrithik had to struggle after Kaho Naa.. Pyaar Hai. Salman has gone through low phases, even Aamir has. Akshay and Ajay didn’t have the following that they now have, back in the 90s.

Q. Have no question to ask. Just wanted to compliment you on the excellent work that this site is doing on bollywood reporting. Your box office analysis on various films/stars makes intriguing reading. The high no of questions that get asked on AskIndicine are a testimony to your increasing popularity. If you guys can also get interviews of stars/directors wherein the questions will be asked by you, it would be great.This is certainly one of the best and trusted sites which I often visit to get all the information on movies/box office. Keep up the good work.

A. First of all, thank you for visiting and reading. As for interviews, it can be done. But we do not like the whole process of handling egos, waiting for stars. They usually give interviews prior to the release of their films and they do not like talking about box office. Hundreds of sites publish interviews and if you read even some of them, most sentences are repeated. ‘He / she was amazing as a co-star, it was great working with’, ‘signed the movie for its story’, ‘blown away by the script’, ‘the director is a genius’, ‘it’s my co-star’s best performance’.  Hrithik said Katrina’s best performance was in Bang Bang. That says a lot, doesn’t it? Stars can’t be honest and frank in their interviews, so it’s pointless in a way. Having said that, what we would like to do is, take a list of questions from our readers and then get stars to answer them.

Q. After blockbuster hit PRDP, are Sooraj Barjatya and Salman Khan teams up again for another project?

A. The blockbuster part is not true and so are rumours of them coming together. There is a new website that is writing a lot of rubbish to garner publicity, most of what they are writing is baseless.

Q. Who is the main lead in Robot 2.0?

A. Same as Robot 1 / Endhiran. But Akshay has a meaty role to play, the makers have said the two characters are equally matched.

Q. Why is their difference between Producers figure and Trade figure of a film collection and which one is accurate?

A. Both are not 100% accurate.

Q. Which is Best Year in SRK’s career according to you – 1993, 1995, 2004, 2007?

A. 1995, one all-time blockbuster (DDLJ) and one blockbuster (Karan Arjun). Solo release-wise, 2007 because of Om Shanti Om and Chak De India. It was a great year simply because of the fact that one film was a acclaimed classic and the other became the top grosser of all time.

Q. Yesterday, you said that Fitoor needs to collect 70-75 CR just to recover costs only.. My question is why these filmmakers spend so much on a film when they know that there is a very little chance of recovery. In today’s time when we see that every second film is failing, then why spending so much on a movie with no face value? 

A. From the makers point of view, Abhishek Kapoor’s first two films were also niche, Rock On and Kai Po Che. But both did fairly well at the box office. When Fitoor was planned, Katrina was the top female star in the industry and Aditya Roy Kapur was coming after a big film like ‘Aashiqui 2’. So they probably thought the interesting pairing might work, along with Abhishek Kapoor as director.

A lot also depends on the timing of release, because careers can change any Friday. Anurag Basu and Ranbir decided to produce Jagga Jasoos soon after the success of Barfi, look at where the film is now. It once had everything going for it, now almost nothing. Both the lead stars, who were back then one of the tops stars, are now going through the lowest phase in their respective careers.

It’s easy to ridicule the makers with the benefit of hindsight, but no filmmaker, actor or producer sets out to do a film that they believe is certain to fail.

Getting the economics right is also difficult, because every director has a certain vision for his films. Tamasha would have probably worked if it was not shot at a exotic foreign location. A film like Badlapur would fail if it was made on a budget of 35-40 crore. At the same time, if there is a compromise made on the budget and the product is not upto expectations scale and setting wise, it might again disappoint the audience and fail at the box office.

Q. Why do you think Komal Nahta tweeted that Raees is being postponed? Was it a promotional gimmick ? Please share your thoughts – Aban

A. We are not quite sure what happened there. From what we know, Komal and Ritesh are close, Komal does visit Excel office to watch promos, trailers etc and he gives his feedback prior to release and after release. So both the tweet and the denial did come as a surprise. Exact reason we do not know. To be very honest, we think we know the reason for the whole drama, but can’t reveal it on a public platform that’s read by many.

Q. Kapoor and Sons Trailer Rating?

A. 4 stars, loved it. Not many were eagerly waiting for the film, but after the trailer everything has changed. The film looks very promising now.

Q. Why media is always biased towards SRK? – Yuvraj

A. That’s like asking why our media is biased towards PM Modi. Anything that SRK says or does, is big news. People like reading about his films, his off-screen persona, everything combined generates extreme reactions. People wait to write him off, even when his films gross a massive 380 crore worldwide. His fans want him to succeed, there is another bunch who want to see him fail. This is not glorying SRK, but the truth. SRK related topics are interesting to read or talk about, whether you like him or not! So when a topic is interesting, media covers it. His PR is good too.

Q. Can Robot 2.0 become the first 400 crore movie in India?

A. Please do not ask us such questions, it’s impossible to answer. It’s like asking if the world might end in 2020. Who knows? Robot 2.0 might do 400 crore or finish at 200 crore or do 800 crore. All depends on content. Even S.S Rajamouli said, he expected Baahubali to open slow and then slowly gain momentum. But Baahubali was record-smashing opener and record-breaking grosser. Anything can happen. Robot 2 is a massive film under a fantastic director and popular stars. Akshay’s presence will further increase its reach. This is the best answer we can give at this point in time.

Q. What us the meaning of term Screenplay?

A. Apart from the script, it covers the visual aspects of film making. Like how a particular scene will be shot, where the songs will be included, the shooting locations etc. The Oscars awards are presented to the Best Original Screenplay as it includes the entire process of film making, which explains why you probably may have never heard of an award for Best Script – one of our many Bollywood awards might have one, but credible ones only have Best Original Screenplay. Original is also important, even screeplays that are based on novels or plays don’t win awards in that category.

That ends our QnA for today. We received more than 450 questions today, we will answer a few more questions after a couple of days. Hope you enjoyed today’s QnA. Feedback is welcome in the comments section below, we do read all your comments. Thank you.