The money churning algorithm

Dusserra to Diwali is the time when Bollywood tends to release some of its biggest films. True to the festive spirit, most of these releases have great show done by PR, media and all that jazz, which is now called promotion

Bollywood has delivered its most trashy undeserving hits during these festivals. Here is a brief look at some of our biggest superstar driven hits during the festival season. While they were overhyped and did churn out big numbers they have horse dung content or almost near to it. May I add that I myself enjoyed ‘Son of Sardar’, maybe it is my kind of horse dung.

‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’, so given the fact that it was released on diwali on probably ten thousand screens, I am being sarcastic here, the real number of screens were much lesser. Ace director Yash Chopra passed away just before the release and it turned out be a one tragic unintended hype. The movie was and is the biggest romantic hoax pulled on Indian audience. A guy switches jobs from being a waiter to a bomb diffuser in Indian Army as if it was as easy as shutting down ‘golgappe ki rehdi’ and selling chole kulche instead in Chandni Chowk. Add an over the top Anushka and I can put rabbit to shame docile Katrina .The movie grossed 122 odd crore at box office. If you ask me diwali helped.

‘Ra.one’, frankly if I did the graphics for this one, I would have taken King Khan to the courts for building third rate content around Indian cinema’s best graphics work, till of course Rajamouli came to the party with his ‘Baahubali’. Imagine Taj Mahal sitting inside apna Tank Bund. That is Ra.one’s graphics and story put visually for you. This one delivered 115 crores, again the makers can thank the ashirvaad of goddess Lakshmi and diwali time for this pakau movie.

Frankly, the value for money in the last decade of diwali releases came from Ajay Devgan, in his ‘Son of Sardar’ as it had a different story and ‘Golmaal 3’ was at least once watchable. This was honest popcorn cinema delivered with freshness.

‘Om Shanti Om’, the loosely inspired from ‘Karz’ movie, frankly is SRK’s best value for money movie across his diwali offerings. Add Farah Khan’s amazing comical ode to the cinema of 70s and a Deepika Padukone making her debut. This one is an entertainer for keeps. It deserved its box office numbers in my personal opinion. It also underlined my opinion post ‘Main Hoon Na’ and this one that SRK should work more with Farah Khan a fact, which got underlined with ‘Happy New Year’.

It was also on diwali that Indian cinema and its reigning Badshah delivered the biggest insult to Indian cinema’s original suave gangster classic called ‘Don’. Whatever be the box office numbers of this stammering Don, he just did not bring the style to the table that the original had. In my book the only difference between this one and Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag’ is that this one worked at the box office. Once again Diwali helped this third class imitation of a classic.

‘All the best’ remains one of those mysteries, which I was never able to solve when I would look at the fact that this movie made 42 crore at the box office and then I realised it was released on diwali. This also remains one of those rare gems where yours truly walked out after half an hour.

‘Veer Zaara’ made at a cost of Rs 40 crore recovered its 40 crore largely because of three reasons – It was released on diwali; even on global locations it was released when NRIs were celebrating diwali and even Pakistanis watch movies during diwali. Content? Acting? Hehe come-on dude this was a diwali/dussera release! Just chill!

By: Rahul Deo Bharadwaj