Bad boys, big bucks: Why all Bollywood movies of the 300-crore club this year star a bad boy
Salman Khan, Rajkumar Hirani and bad boys are what the audiences never refuse
Bollywood owes its biggest blockbusters of this year to bad boys — real, reel and historical. Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Alauddin Khilji/Karni Sena!
Despite a number of critically acclaimed movies, those which could make it to the industry’s elite 300-crore club are Salman Khan’s Tiger Zinda Hai (released in December 2017), Sanjay Dutt’s biopic Sanju, which is still running, and the majorly controversial Padmaavat which lost its ‘i’ owing to the controversy over Khilji and Padmini.
This happened in a year which had PadMan, a socially relevant movie, Raazi, a spy movie about which there were no mixed reviews, and Rajinikanth’s Kaala in Hindi.
But no, nothing could match the aura of our very own bad boys and our unquestioned loyalty for them.
Even a totally nonsensical movie like Race 3, according to reports, missed the entry to the club by only a few marks (crores)! This can be attributed to nothing but Salman Khan's fanbase.
The 300-crore formula
A few years ago, the 100-crore club was a big thing for Bollywood.
But then, Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan changed the dynamics with PK, which became the first movie to set up entry to this elite club, joining which is now the most coveted aim in Bollywood.
But clearly, it’s not easy. Even more in an era dominated by digital viewers.
A lot of calculations on when to release the movie to avoid competition from other Bollywood films and Hollywood movies as well, how to market and distribute, how to publicise, etc., exist behind the making of a 300-crore-club cub, but so far, Salman Khan, Rajkumar Hirani and bad, bad boys are what the audiences never refuse.
Content? Well…
There was less spite against PK, Dangal, Sultan, Baahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijan — the early entrants of the club.
But Tiger Zinda Hai failed to impress many, excluding Bhai ke fans.
The same goes for Padmaavat, which created much ado over apparently nothing, courtesy the initially enraged Karni Sena. Sanju, too, allegedly is a dishonest biopic of the very honest Sanjay Dutt.
Love from China
Another interesting contributor to this club today is box office love from China, but so far, the Chinese have stayed quite committed to Aamir Khan. Even his Secret Superstar, which didn’t see much beyond a secret success in India, actually collected more than Rs 300 crore only in China. In PK and Dangal too, China’s contribution was significant.
But since membership to the 300-crore-club is exclusive to movies that make Rs 300 crore from India, excuse us, Secret Superstar.
Bhai and Baba
So, in the pre-multiplex era, when Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt used to appear for the first time in a movie, cinema halls used to explode in cheers and whistles.
Nothing has changed.
Now, the box office claps and cheers every time Salman Khan comes along and actually does nothing.
The way Ranbir Kapoor internalised Sanjay Dutt, the credit for Sanju entering the coveted club apparently goes back to Sanjay Dutt. The curious audience, intrigued by Sanjay Dutt’s real-life scandals, went to the hall to watch young and real Sanjay Dutt, not Ranbir Kapoor.
In Padmaavat too, while the Karni Sena did their part in assiduously promoting the film, it was Ranveer Singh’s Khilji, all lust and spite, that caught the fancy of the audience.
That Bollywood valourises its real-life villains and loves to portray them as a ‘truant child’ or a ‘misunderstood character’ is an old complaint. Now we know why Bollywood is not apologetic at all about this, as behind the success of most of the films that enter the 300-crore-club, there is a bad, bad boy.