Bbhudda clash with Delhi Belly

So here i’m back and really angry with one time legend and highly regarded actor Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. This in regards to recent activities and comments he has made on his movie and Delhi Belly. Now this is a known fact that Delhi Belly which was a experimental film by Aamir Khan has been widely accepted and has managed to collect over 26  crore in first 3 days whereas Bbhuddha... which was ambitious comeback film from Mr. Bachchan has just done reasonable opening of Rs. 8 crore. (*According to data available on www.boxofficeindia.com and www.bollywoodhungama.com). The problem is that Big B is not ready to accept this reality and has started commenting on the business of Delhi Belly and also stated that the collections are wrongly reported from the influence of Aamir Khan Production. As his comment in one of his post was “DB is good in select multiplexes and overseas pockets only. At 25-30% it has had a weak start in metros like Calcutta (10% in some cases), Jaipur, Pune, Surat and emerging Hindi metros like Kanpur and even Bombay is nowhere near as expected with Saturday collections clocking barely 25-30% bookings at multiplexes like Fame Adlabs still. Tickets are readily available most everywhere.” which is not true. I was struggling for only one ticket of the 8:40 show on Saturday and had to watch 10:05 show in PVR Oberoi mall. This shows that not even single seat was empty anywhere.

Sure Amitabh was not prepared for this. He has thought of Delhi Belly as a very niche movie and always had this thing in his mind that Bbhudda will do better business then DB. And he has reason to think this ways. BHTB was a proper masala bollywood film whereas DB was some experimental English movie. And box office has shown good numbers for all bollwood masala movies recently. BHTB was inspired by Dharmendra Yamla Pagla Deewana which did great business even though Dharamji and his boys are not as big star as BIG B.

Let’s talk about Aamirs DB. One should be very careful to release his movie alongside Aamir’s movie even if it is some experiment from AKP. We should not forget that Aamir is best known for experimenting and making them a success. I still remember a story told to me by insider that everyone on the marketing team was shocked when prior to release of Taare Zameen Pe Aamir announced that “this should not be treated as a small film and I expect this to be the biggest hit of the year.” It was appearent that even without any bollywood masala or a female lead the film was the biggest hit of the year. So this proves that  one should not underestimate Aamir’s movie at any cost.

Movie – A Commercial Art

Entertainment is a business more of what your customer will like then what you like. Movie is a part of entertainment industry is also a part of Art industry. Art at various points is considered to have the prospective of maker and see it as from creator’s prospective. This makes Film a very tricky business. Films are kind of combination of Art and Entertainment. Movie is popularly known as Commercial Art. Which means that there is lots of creativity involved but its objective is to generate revenues. The reason why it is a form of commercial art is that it is made with huge budgets and one cannot risk such big amount for the sake of creativity. In other form of art, like Painting and Music, the cost of production is not that high and hence they can be made just for the sake of creativity.

So does that means that films have less scope for creativity? The answer is No. This makes it more challenging for the director to do wonders with movie and make it a huge hit. Films like 3 idiots and low budget Shaitaan has proved in Indian market that creativity only get enhanced if the challenge of making it commercially successful is taken as opportunity. As one has rightly quoted that every obstacle if seen differently is an opportunity.

In India we have one more industry, advertising which is a form of commercial art. The objective if advertising is not to please eyes but is to make you buy that product. Advertising as an industry is huge in India and Indian advertisements are cortically acclaimed everywhere in world. We can take this as example that every year we win something at Cannes, which are considered as Oscars of Advertising industry. Indian advertisers and very well understood that the first objective of advertising is to sell. But sadly Indian film industry still need understand this fact. Still there are directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali who consider themselves as artist and spen over 20 crores of producers money on a movie like Sawariya. One should understand that masses want to see something which they can relate with and not something director can relate with. A blue canvas and fictitious background is something which a commoner will not relate to and hence will not go and watch that movie ever.