Some Tollywood and Bollywood films have minted money, but industry observers feel that the content has not been as great as expected. Some film makers like Puri Jagannath in Tollywood are of the opinion that the audience may not come to the movie theaters in the near future. Puri wants to go for a web series, so that people can watch it at home.
“I think that unless the quality of the films gets better, people aren’t going to spend money. They’re increasingly being driven away from the movies because everyone in the film industry is thinking only about the commercial aspect and is doing on-the-table calculations and that doesn’t necessarily work,” says film critic Omar Qureshi.
Most of youth are now glued to short films. In fact so many short film makers here have graduated to big films and they have made hits which also minted money. They are not confident in the long run. Getting a financier or producer is not easy for that matter.
Qureshi is not so impressed by the first quarter box office figures. “I think all movies have fared average or below-average. I don’t think any of them in the first quarter have done reasonably well or beyond all doubt.”This is about Bollywood movies.
Producer Pritish Nandy feels that in order to do well at the box office, filmmakers often drop the idea of offering audiences path-breaking stories. “We didn’t have path-breaking as well as commercially huge films in the first quarter of this year,” he says.
“If you want path-breaking films, don’t expect them to make big money. Path-breaking films happen in the non-commercial area. Hopefully, we’ll have both path-breaking and commercial films. You can’t judge movies on quarter-to-quarter basis. Everyone is too busy going out there and cashing in.”
Most of the producers want big heroes. The big men want the regular stuff which has the formula of box office collection. Gautami Putra was one movie where the director and Hero Balakrishna have taken a calculated risk and it did well at the box office. There are very few heroes who are prepared to take such risks.
Baahubali -2 is being released with great-great expectations. But after that is a big question. There is no new content as such. There are very few writers for the industry. People are still dependent of remake and dubbing of the movies from other languages. Guru is the latest example for Venkatesh.
We need original content.
