2003: Many hits, some misses for Hindi film industry
By Subhash K. Jha, IANS
Mumbai, Dec 26 (IANS) The films rolled out this year with their share of flops much like any other, but 2003 was truly special for Bollywood as after decades it witnessed 12 months flush with hits.
The number of successes at the box office was unprecedented.
The hits and semi-hits of the year in order of release were:
K. Vijaya Bhaskar's "Tujhe Meri Kasam" (massive in Bihar and pockets of Maharashtra),
Amit Saxena's "Jism" (profitable because of the cheesecake factor and for its low production cost),
David Dhawan's "Ek Aur Ek Gyarah" (profit earner because of producer Subhash Ghai's clout and the reasonable selling price),
Ken Ghosh's "Ishq Vishq" (a rage in the cities),
Raj Kanwar's "Andaaz" (the first universal hit of the year),
Ram Gopal Varma's "Bhoot",
Govind Menon's "Khwahish" (cheesecake-and-beefcake flesh-fest),
Aziz Mirza's "Chalte Chalte",
Sujoy Ghosh's "Jhankar Beats" (the first and only multiplex-oriented hit so far),
Sooraj Barjatya's "Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon" (though a box office disappointment, it didn't lose money),
Harry Baweja's "Qayamat",
Priyadarshan's chuckle-orgy "Hungama",
Rakesh Roshan's "Koi...Mil Gaya" and Satish Kaushik's "Tere Naam".
Besides Rakesh Roshan's "Koi...Mil Gaya", the real big hits of the year were definitely the two Shah Rukh Khan starrers "Chalte Chalte" and "Kal Ho Naa Ho", which reconfirmed the actor's supremacy at the box office.
The other in-demand Khan was Salman who bounced back after a prolonged season of legal wrangles with the dark-and-tragic love story "Tere Naam". The film took an unprecedented opening and settled down to being a middling success.
Later during the year, Salman followed "Tere Naam" with another hit "Baghban" where the focus of interest was indisputably Amitabh Bachchan. For the first time in the history of mainstream Hindi cinema, a film featuring a 60-plus leading man became a whopper of a hit, confirming the Big B's place at the summit of the box office.
So deep and emotional was the impact of "Baghban" that audiences readily forgave his presence in Kaizad Gustad's obnoxious black comedy "Boom", which turned out to be one of the biggest disasters of the year.
The Akshay Kumar love triangle "Andaaz" was the other box office bonanza of the year. Bolstered by some skin show from the two newcomers Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta, producer Suneel Darshan and director Raj Kanwar's family-into-flesh drama reaped in stupendous dividends and also gave the industry two new hot-and-saleable female stars.
The year was an abysmal year for new acting and directorial talent.
Except for Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta in "Andaaz", the only other first-timers who made an impact were Shahid Kapoor in "Ishq Vishq", John Abraham in "Jism" and, to some extent, Ritesh Deshmukh in "Tujhe Meri Kasam" as well as Mallika Sherawat in "Khwahish".
By the end of the year, these four newcomers were among the busiest stars in Bollywood.
Other newcomers just fell by the wayside.
Star-kids like Tanisha ("Shhhh"), Juhi Babbar ("Kaash...Aap Hamare Hote"), Suchinder Bali ("Aanch") and Zayed Khan ("Chura Liya Hai Tumne") faced rejection.
With them were the less 'privileged' wannabes like TV stars Amarr Updhayay ("Dhund: The Fog") and Rahul Bhatt ("Nayee Padosan"), Atin Bhalla ("Om"), Meera Vasudevan ("Rules: Pyar Ka Superhit Formula"), Farhan Hashmi ("Footpath"), Amit Hingorani ("Kaise Kahoon...Ke Pyar Hai"), Masumi Makhija ("Chupke Se"), Katrina Kaif ("Boom"), Celina Jaitley ("Khel", "Janasheen"), Amitabh Dayal ("Kagaar")....
First-time directors proved even more disastrous.
From TV's successful Anurag Basu ("Kucch To Hai", "Saaya"), Parvathi Balagopalan ("Rules: Pyar Ka Superhit Formula") Kushan Nandy ("88 Antop Hill") and Tigmanshu Dhulia ("Haasil"), to stunt coordinator Tinu Verma ("Baaz: A Bird In Danger"), eminent playwright Mahesh Dattani ("Mango Souffle") well-known screenwriter Honey Irani ("Armaan") and actor Deepak Tijori ("Oops")... all burnt their fingers.
A growing phenomenon that suffered a serious setback was multiplex movies.
Films like Raja Menon's "Bas Yun Hi", Gaurab Pandey's "Stumped", Parkash Belwade's "Stumble", Mahesh Dattani's "Mango Souffle", Vijay Kumar's "Kahan Ho Tum", the late Anant Balani's "Mumbai Matinee" and "Joggers Park", Nagesh Kukunor's superbly styled "3 Deewarein", Kalpana Lajmi's "Kyon" and Robbie Grewal's "Samay: When Time Strikes" didn't get themselves the niche audience that they expected.
Perhaps the fault lies in presuming such niche audiences are more patient and attentive than they are.
Earlier during the year, skin-fests like "Jism", "Andaaz" and "Khwahish" showed profits. But the craving for titillation died a quiet death when Deepak Tijori's "Oops", Kaizad Gustad's "Boom" and Feroz Khan's "Janasheen" sank without a trace.
The major money-losers of the year were Suneel Darshan's "Talaash", Aishwarya Rai's home production "Dil Ka Rishta", E. Niwas' hard hitting "Dum" that reversed Vivek Oberoi's stardom to a large extent, Boney Kapoor's "Khushi" and Anil Sharma's "The Hero: Love Story Of A Spy" (2003 was clearly not the year of Sunny Deol).
Also on the list were Honey Irani's Amitabh Bachchan-Anil Kapoor-Preity Zinta extravaganza "Armaan", "Boom", Suneil Shetty's first home production "Khel", Chandraprakash Diwedi's deplorably neglected period classic "Pinjar" and "Janasheen".
Hype alone can't make a film.
The failure of the big-budgeted over-publicised films in 2003 proved it. And if hype could make a star Vivek Oberoi's extensive live coverage of his tirade against Salman Khan, telecast ironically on April Fool's Day, would have effectually boosted one career and busted the other.
No such thing happened. Oberoi broke his leg and was out of circulation. Salman smirked all the way to the bank.
Undoubtedly the big media events of Bollywood in 2003 were Oberoi's Salman-speak and Karisma Kapoor's wedding. Ironically the most successful star of 2003, Ajay Devgan is the most media-wary star of Bollywood.
Like much of the success-failure pendulum the Oberoi-Devgan experience served some invaluable lessons for Bollywood.
But when has Bollywood ever paid attention to the warning signals?
Though the tide of rot was stemmed in 2003 it would take a lot more than south Indian remakes and nebulous crossover films to keep mainstream Hindi cinema afloat in 2004.
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