Mumbai: The Hindi film industry has seen 30-40 big-budget films getting shelved in the past year and a half, a sharp rise from the pre-pandemic average of 10-15 annually, according to trade analysts, causing fresh concerns in Bollywood despite some recent relief brought by the success of a few mid-size releases. Big-budget films like Rakshas and Baiju Bawra (Ranveer Singh); Ganpat 2, Rambo and Hero No.1(Tiger Shroff);Hera Pheri 3 (Akshay Kumar); Draupadi (Deepika Padukone) and Mr Lele (Varun Dhawan) are among the projects featuring prominent stars that have been shelved, industry watchers said.
Such films account for 30-40% of all projects announced during the period when the Hindi movie industry has seen several releases that have failed to make an impact at the box office . Producers and trade analysts told ET that three key factors have made launching a Hindi film increasingly unviable: high costs linked to star remuneration and their entourages, promotion, marketing and advertising; a lack of confidence in the commercial viability of existing scripts that don’t align with shifting audience tastes and the failure of stars to deliver strong box-office openings. Content is King “Today, stars cannot guarantee you a good opening at the box office.
The industry must accept this,” said Tanuj Garg, managing partner at Ellipsis Entertainment, a production house. “Actors and directors before the pandemic worked on hefty fees. This was impractical and unsustainable.
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