DEMOCRATIZATION OF BOLLYWOOD-secret behind success of WANTED & DABANGG

2008 had WANTED as surprise hit and 2009 saw DABANGG raking all the moolah.This phenomenon has totally changed the face of box office and fate of stars upside down. Salman Khan has certainly become 'the' hot property and five projects (READY,BODYGUARD,KICK,WANTED-2 &Partner-2) starring him are currently under production with almost similar mass appeal as DABANGG had. Now even Shahrukh is coming up with two action oriented projects next year,Ra.One releasing in June and DON-2 on 23rd December.Aamir has just signed his next a thriller to be directed by Reema Kangti (who directed Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.).Almost all stars are moving towards action oriented storyline and social or urban or multiplex themes have become suddenly extinct.


There is a sound reason behind this sudden shift of taste of consumer.Let's go back to 2001 when 1st phase of multiplex revolution happened.Multiplexes were opening up in every metros and by 2007 multiplexes acquired fair share of box office in mini-metros(Kanpur,Indore,Surat, Ahmadabad etc) too. Now next phase of growth for multiplexes was from smaller towns and mini-metros. Going by the revenue collection figures,65 percent of total collection comes from small towns & tier-2 cities.Multiplexes opened in cities like Raipur,Ludhiana,Lucknow,Moradabad,Nasik,Aurangabad,Amritsar.AND THIS CHANGED THE EQUATION OF SUCCESS OF BOLLYWOOD.


Suddenly in 2008,all top 3 grosser(GHAJINI,RAB NE BANA DI JODI & SINGH IS KINNG)were hard core masala ventures;almost in contrast of hits(CHAK DE INDIA & TAARE ZAMEEN PAR) of 2007.This trend got consolidated in 2009 with the success of WANTED which was a huge surprise hit after a long time(last surprise hit was GADAR in 2001 almost a decade back!).Now success of DABANGG  & ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAI in 2010 has stamped the power of 'ordinary audience'(who enjoys movies for solely for entertainment not like multiplex audience where agenda driven or fake intellectual movies are liked).Where from 2001 to 2007 saw at least 3 to 4 multiplex hits(KHOSLA KA GHOSLA,AAMIR,BHEJA FRY,PYAR KE SIDE EFFECTS,PAGE3) every year, this trend started diminishing from 2008.



This phenomenon is democratization of bollywood which has it's share of pros & cons.On the one hand,we are getting full on dose of same old bollywood masala entertainment(DABANGG has striking similarities with Dharmendra's PRATIGYA) but on the contrary it is boosting revenue streams of box office which had gone dry since the advent of multiplexes.So next time if you shake your head in utter disbelief that how come 'this' movie earned so much remember there will be lakhs of audiences in hinterland of country clapping and whistling on song dance and drama TYPICAL BOLLYWOOD ISHTYLE.