5 years back Bollywood was ruled by 3 Khans. Salman, Aamir & Shahrukh. Any movie that cast them was a blockbuster and producer made millions by betting them. Out of all three Salman is a very special case. He proved many times that a movie that didn’t have a storyline, direction or anything for that matter still worked very well at the box office.
5 years back Bollywood was ruled by 3 Khans. Salman, Aamir & Shahrukh
The best examples of such movies are Ready, Kick, Jai Ho, etc. If any other Actor had done these movies it would have been a Box office disaster but Salman Khan made them work.
But times have changed and so has the box office command of all three Khan’s.
Aamir & Shahrukh’s latest big-budget debacle ( Thugs of Hindostan, Zero) has proved that only Star magic will not work.
So Salman’s latest movie Bharat is going to be released today and here are my
3 reasons why Salman’s Bharat might not be his next Blockbuster
- Not typical Salman Movie
Salman movies that have worked well at the box office are typical Action Masala movie. The ingredients of these movies were Action, Romance, Comedy, One-liners. Movies like Dabangg, Wanted, Ek Tha Tiger, etc. Whenever he made any other kind of movie it never worked like tube light. Even the action movies that were just trash have stopped working like Race 3
- Mature Audience
Salman Khan’s typical Audience loved his typical Masala movie for a long time. But times have changed. With the onslaught of Jio’s internet, Indian audience even from the village has consumed a lot of quality content. Hence his audience is no longer ready to shell out money just to see him on screen. The proof for the same is the huge success of content-driven movies ( Andhadun, Badhai ho ) and big budget movies (Zero, Kalank) not even recovering their investment.
- Content-driven movie clone
As you might have seen in the movie trailer, it looks like a content-oriented movie. But If you look closer you just can’t identify whats the storyline nor do you feel urged to watch Salman as an old man, Navy personnel, common worker, stunt performer. You just don’t feel connected and in each of the different shades that you see him, you just can’t help but see Salman and not the character.
So just because content movies work doesn’t mean you make a movie look like it. You need an awesome script in the first place and for that, you need great writers.
Ali Abbas Zafar who is the writer & director of Bharat has not made great story driven movies except Sultan which still had a good story arc. His other movies like ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’ ‘Gunday’ ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ had below average stories. No wonder Sultan & Tiger were the only movies that were successful at Box Office. (Tiger Zinda Hai succeeded purely on Salman’s star power)
Having said all this, I still might be wrong. Bajrangi Bhaijan was a pleasant surprise and I never expected Salman movies to have such emotional content.
Movie making is a tedious process and thousands of people get employed because of this. So I hope I am wrong and wishing the Bharat team all the best and Eid Mubarak.
