Big Budget Movies Are Tanking Because Film Makers Are Cutting Corners

Salman Khan and Rashmika Mandanna’s much-anticipated action drama, Sikandar, finally hit the screens on Sunday, March 30. After being in the pipeline for quite some time, the film also attracted its fair share of controversies during its promotions. Despite the high expectations for a strong box office performance, the early estimates fail to live up to that anticipation.

According to Sacnilk’s early tracking, Sikandar may earn ₹55.01 crore by the end of today, Tuesday, April 1. Despite a ₹29 crore collection on Eid, the film's performance has been less than stellar. With an overall Hindi occupancy rate of just 24.60% and the highest footfall during evening and night shows, the numbers indicate that the film's appeal may not have lived up to the hype.

If big-budget films, low on content and high on production cost, are underperforming today, there is a reason for that. The issue isn't with masala films themselves, but with filmmakers who refuse to let go of the outdated formulas that once worked six or eight years ago. These formulas have grown stale, repetitive, and, ultimately, boring.

Big Budget Movies Are Tanking Because Film Makers Are Cutting Corners

The sheer number of sequels we see releasing each year is proof. Same faces, same structure and same treatment. How many times can one watch chiseled students mindlessly competing for a pretentious trophy? Or alpha heroes thumping chest and beating twenty goons with just one kick in southern remakes? Films in which women are like props that are interchangeable?

If only reviews were so effective in deterring viewers from watching certain kind of films. We wouldn’t be enduring stardom of so many poorly talented actors. We wouldn’t have to watch film after film studded with mannequins and a script not even worth of being a primary school skit. But that is not how fandom or box office works.

A film which is light on script but heavy on entertainment isn't a bad film. As the man I have married once said to me, we have enough of tragedy in our own lives to endure that of others on silver screen. A good big budget masala film comes with a disclaimer for suspension of disbelief and removes you from your own uncomfortable reality. It is an otherworldly experience which is both refreshing and engaging. This is why I have seldom seen movie critics give bad reviews to good entertainers.

With rise in number of female audience, film makers can't continue to cater content which is offensive, regressive and objectifying, and then expect us to shell out money to watch it too.

So the keyword here is good. If a film is 'good', irrespective of its genre, it’ll earn critical praise and money too. But can we call the string of big-budget films we have seen in recent times good on any accounts? Are critics simply being held accountable for showing the industry a mirror and emulating what most film viewers feel today? Why is the onus of failure of big-budget films on them, when it is the film-makers who are failing to digress from formula filmmaking and show some respect to their audience?

It isn’t as if films aren’t working at all. A lot of low-budget films with no big names have been doing well recently, and it shows that people are eager to watch films, if they are catered to their sensibilities. People want new subjects, fresh treatment and content which is worth spending their hard-earned money on. So instead of asking critics to "digest" big-budget movies, perhaps the federation should ask makers of these big-budget extravaganzas to wake up and smell the change. Lazy filmmaking and cutting corners is no longer acceptable. The audience is can be fooled by extravagance but not repetitiveness.

This article was written by Yamini Pustake Bhalerao and has been recently updated. The views expressed are the author’s own.