Hindi Film Industry Back From The Doldrums; What Changed In 2023?

After a couple of years in the doldrums, the beleaguered Hindi film industry appears to have rediscovered its mojo. A series of commercially successful movies this year has dispelled the gloomy outlook about its future. The January release Pathaan, a Shahrukh Khan-starrer, kicked off the recovery with theatres witnessing mega footfall and in August, sequels Sunny Deol-starrer Gadar 2 and Akshay Kumar’s Oh My God 2 repeated the feat. Some other movies, both small and big-budget, released in between have been successful in various degrees too.

Not long ago, doomsayers opined that the fall was irreversible and dished out reasons for their prediction. Hindi films, they said, had lost the masses due to unappealing content. South Indian movies did well because they never lost sight of the audience. The latter were rooted in the native cultural ethos and cinematic taste and rarely veered away from those. By contrast, Hindi movies were neither here nor there. While popular cinema demands adherence to a broad formula, Hindi films offered little innovation within.

To make the point they cited the examples of SS Rajamouli directorial Baahubali (both parts), and RRR, Prashanth Neel directed KGF (Chapter 1 and 2) and Sukumar’s Pushpa, which found tremendous pan-Indian response. While all these movies stuck to the formulaic template – larger than life protagonists and antagonists, underdog fightback and revenge with loads of drama and action thrown in – they offered great creativity in story-telling and treatment of the subject. Hindi films lacked, they said, similar creative flight and the breadth of imagination.

The other important factor, the doomsayers maintained, was the emergence of OTT platforms, which offered terrific content to suit all tastes besides allowing the viewers to watch shows or movies at their convenience. The combination of easy accessibility and low price, made OTT far more attractive than going to a theatre to watch a movie. That many films with interesting plotlines and competent ensemble cast released directly on these platforms also left viewers spoilt for choice.

So what caused the turnaround in 2023? Have our filmmakers taken a leaf out of Southern counterparts and suddenly turned more imaginative? Has the audience developed OTT fatigue and yearn for the big screen experience again? Not really if you observe closely. There’s not much originally visible in the successful movies so far in the year.

Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan

was retelling of spyverse stories earlier. Karan Johar’s Rocky aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani was similar to Abhishek Verman directorial Two States and Gadar 2 was a sequel deviating little from the template of the original. Oh My God was a brilliant movie with a thought-provoking storyline. Its second part is equally engaging. If both OMGs have received audience appreciation the credit goes solely to content.

The point here is Hindi films haven’t gone for any drastic reinvention to woo back the mass audience. They have gone sleeker with advanced VFX technology, but that’s perhaps the only change. Nor has OTT stopped providing quality material. So what really changed?

Maybe it has to do with phases. The industry was in a worse predicament in the 1990s with empty theatres and flop movies. It bounced back. It has shown the resilience to do so earlier too. The lull in the last couple of years could have something to do with the corona induced inertia. The pandemic forced people to rely heavily on micro screens for (mobile phone and laptop etc) entertainment. To break that habit, Hindi films needed visually grand masala movies. The Hindi versions of Baahubali, KGF, RRR etc provided exactly that. They made the big screen experience alluring again and broke the audience inertia. The momentum they provided stays strong. The spate of successful movies in 2023 can be attributed to that.

Good times are back for Hindi movies, but the challenge for filmmakers to refine and improve content remains. They cannot take the good times for granted.