Salman hit/flop depends on script?

Explaining brouhaha over boxoffice BO numbers superstar Aamir Khan told me in an interview oncemdashit was chiefly an outcome of corporate firms taking hold of film production in BollywoodThey talked up footfall figures Heavily advertising thus in their posters press material Those movies may not have done as well But these companies were listed in stock marketsTheir market cap could go up by a couple of thousand crores if they registered a hit Whatrsquos fudginghedging a few crores here and there if that prevents a stock drop or pulls up stock prices several times insteadAamir mentioned this to me circa 2009 Is this roughly whenwhy the average Bollywood filmgoer simultaneously began to fixate over BO Yes And noIndians are obsessed with numbers It starts from growing up with numbersmdashboard results college entrance tests competitive job examsmdashdefining everything theyrsquoll do for the rest of their livesAssumption is good score good mind How do we reduce everything to this At the movies a storytelling artform foremostmdashquantitatively BO qualitatively consumerstar ratingsHence good numbers good film Except you can actually gauge a good film only over time right By what survives public memory Thatrsquos a long game We live in the momentIrsquod interviewed Aamir shortly after Ghajini 2008 an uncredited remake of Christopher Nolanrsquos Memento primarily produced in the South where there isnrsquot corporate influence film industry is run by family firms and independent financingGhajini was widely publicised as the first film to cross R100 crore at BO This is couple of years after Aamirrsquos Rang De Basanti 2006mdashie same year as Lage Raho Munna Bhai Khosla Ka Ghosla Omkara Dhoom 2 Golmaal Vivah Kabhi Alvidaa Naa KehnahellipWhat a yeararray Unlikely the first Indian R100 crore film is remembered let alone quoted cited rewatched as ones aboveThat said I see some value of BO for lay viewers while one still canrsquot argue with lunacy of fighting over domestic net global gross etc as if they were chartered accountantsBO footfall It might help you pick between Bengali Sweet House opposite Nathu Sweets in Delhirsquos Bengali Marketmdashif you saw a bigger crowd in either shop since menu is the sameYet movies are meant to be different from each other no Yes but what if there was enough sameness in the difference tooI suppose Aamirrsquos actionavenger Ghajini became a gamechanger for Salman Khan instead A faccedilade between multiplex single screens seemed brokenWanted 2009 directed by Prabhu Deva also from down South came after Ghajinimdasheffectively turning around Salmanrsquos career while he was switching between genres until then barring the loved garbage Garv 2004same spaceWhat followed Wanted was a series of herovillain breadbutter revenge dramas with predictable tropes catapulting Salman aka Bhai to the sameness of a TeluguTamil superstar up NorthIf a genre works others could follow too They did It didnrsquot work the same way Everybody else just had to try harder and work their own ways As they have Aamir SRK Ajay Akshay Hrithik Shahid Ranbir Ranveerhellip Salman remained the most inexplicable still Which is what makes desi showbiz such a tough punt forget professionImagine a movieindustry centred on an individualrsquos stardom while that product the star contains formula X that nobody can explain or replicateYou can still see the point of people at Nathu Sweets knowing exactly what to expect each time they enter Therersquos merit in consistencyBest way to watch a Salman filmrsquos at Bombayrsquos decrepit GaietyGalaxy I did once Bhai walked in on the show Couldnrsquot hear a word from the screenThat was Ready 2011 Couldnrsquot understand a word of that movie once I could hear it thereafter either Why was Ready such a hit When you canrsquot figure that hard to tell why a Salman filmrsquos a flop then Worst way to watch a Salman film is at home as with Radhe 2021 dropped online during pandemicAnother way is to slip into a quieter theatre week after release as I did with Sikandermdashwatching Bhai as RajaKing Sanjay Rajkot hopping around Bombayrsquos kaalipeeli taxisFor villain therersquos a bearded politician in sleeveless jacket whorsquos a mantriminister named Pradhan aka lsquomaut ka saudagarrsquoHersquos after Bhai with cops behind him because this hero prevented rape on a flight Bhai is busy bettering lives of three people his deceased wife donated her organs to Ah whatSikanderrsquos a commercial ldquodisasterrdquomdashhaving already surpassed R100 crore at BO Bhairsquos 18th such quite weighty for a ldquobombrdquo I find blokes blaming script for Salmanrsquos film failingYoursquove watched Indiarsquos GOAT superhit Pushpa 2 albeit made on much grander scale than Sikander I dare you to tell me its plotmdashfrom first scene of the hero speaking Japanese to the last while I was tearing my hairI suspect if inexplicable stardom kingdom then Salmanrsquos simply not expanded his empire In a way that perhaps Allu Arjun or others have from South to NorthAlso why must South accept a stereotypical North Indian actionhero with enough of their own alreadyThat means either Salmanrsquos corecaptive audience doesnrsquot grow And thatrsquos fine Itrsquos huge anyway Or like others even he has to try harder That sucksMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paperatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params