What went wrong with Bollywood? Inside the shocking decline of Hindi cinema

There was a time when we used to wait for release of an Indian movie impatiently.

Not just the movie, its hype, songs, trailer, each and everything even the costumes were talk of the town ahead of any Bollywood movie.

No wonder something happened to Hindi cinema by the passage of time that it is constantly struggling and performing low, failing to hit their mark at the box office despite its big-budget film.

Well, the predictable downfall of Bollywood was honestly already anticipated, with eye-brow raising factors to be noted; ranging from content quality, audience demand, the boycott culture and competition among north and south movies.

Basically, even if we keep these factors aside, the problem is, Bollywood is trapped in a unique formulaic approach which focuses only quick returns with almost same cast and plot-lines rather than creating a meaningful content.

Actor-turned-producer Aamir Khan once shared his two cents on the current state of Indian movies and its failed performance at the box office.

“There’s scope for us to improve as filmmakers,” the 3 Idiots actor said, adding that the audience has evolved since the 2000s.

Evolving also hints at the growing usability of streaming services which has shifted audience expectations and created a competitive landscape for Bollywood as the OTTs provides a diverse range of genres and narratives.

COVID-19 was also considered a key reason behind the unfortunate shift but it’s also five years ago so it cannot be solely blamed for the drawback.

The question still remains — will Bollywood be able to fix the gap between? 

It certainly can if Hindi cinema focuses on quality content, level up their music game instead of making new remixes from old movie songs and multiple combination of strategies including genre-bending films and focusing on diverse genres.