Bollywood’s bad year: How nostalgia is filling empty theatres

With flops increasingly piling up at the box office, Bollywood turns to re-releases, where nostalgia is outshining new offerings

In 2024, director-producer Karan Johar acknowledged that Bollywood is ailing under the weight of its own misgivings, making it one of the worst years for the industry at the theatres. “Firstly, the audiences' tastes have become very definitive. They want a certain kind of cinema. And if you [as a maker], want to do a certain number, then your film has to perform at A, B, and C centres. Multiplexes alone will not suffice,” he said in a with journalist Faye D’Souza in July 2024.

Earlier this year, the much anticipated Jigra—starring Alia Bhatt and jointly produced by her Eternal Sunshine Productions and Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions—was released in theatres to a dismal response. It grossed a meagre ₹4.55 crore on its opening day, marking the lowest debut for any of Bhatt’s films in the last decade. Ten days later, on 21 October, news about Karan Johar selling a 50 per cent stake in Dharma Productions to billionaire vaccine tycoon Adar Poonawalla made headlines.

A dismal number-crunching game

Dharma Productions has seen significant fluctuations in its financial performance in the recent past. In the fiscal year 2022-2023, its revenue rose sharply to ₹1,040 crore from ₹276 crore. Yet, its net profit declined by 59 per cent to ₹11 crore, driven by a 4.5-fold rise in expenses, reaching ₹1,028 crore. In the following fiscal year, its revenue witnessed a modest increase to ₹1,044 crore, though its post-tax profit further decreased to ₹10.7 crore. While the company wasn’t operating at a loss, these figures underscore the financial challenges one of Bollywood’s most prolific production houses is navigating. 

“To be honest, the content being released in theatres now is just so bad that people have stopped going to the theatres,” says film trade analyst and critic Komal Nahta. Confirming the buzz about prevailing trends in the Hindi film industry being largely disastrous as true, he adds, “There are these years every few years when very big releases completely flop, and then the next year is very good again. Moreover, we did not have a big Shah Rukh- or Salman Khan-release this year, even though Stree 2 has broken all box office records in Bollywood of all times. But people don’t really seem to consider that and give that achievement a pass. They only seem to consider the big star-backed films and that’s unfair, also because such films were not expected to do well.”

Running to empty theatres

Besides Stree 2, another release from Maddock Films’ horror-comedy roster, Munjya, emerged as 2024’s sleeper hit. Released in June, it made its way into the coveted ₹100 crore club—a first for actor Sharvari Wagh, who is only three films old. The multi-star-studded sci-fi Kalki 2898 AD (June 2024) was also declared a hit, alongside the most recent Diwali release Singham Again showing promise at the theatres. But for an industry that released approximately 150 films in theatres in 2024, the hits have been few and very far between.

“The kind of appetite the audience has shown for films like Kalki, Munjya, and Stree 2 this year, unfortunately, we have not been able to roll out those kinds of films consistently at all. Our theatre occupancy is going to be good, bad or ugly depending on the amount of FOMO we are able to create among movie-goers to urge them to come to the theatres,” says Akshaye Rathi, Nagpur-based film distributor and exhibitor, and director of Aashirwad Theatres. According to Rathi, the current style of storytelling in Bollywood has become “too urban and elitist”, thereby eluding the audiences that the films should really appeal to. “For a movie to succeed, the last thing that’s important is the story, and the most important thing is the storytelling style.” Rathi goes on. He illustrates this with how a revenge drama can be told Lion King-style, Baahubali-style, or in the style of every other Bhojpuri film, because “they’re all the same stories, but what style you choose to say it in that appeals to the widest audience is where our Hindi films have constantly faltered at.”

Evidently, the Hindi film fraternity hasn’t kept its ear to the ground in an age when the definitions of entertainment have changed. Over-the-top (OTT) content is the primary driver of this paradigm shift, offering entertainment that is not limited to regions, languages or genres, thereby penetrating geographies where even movie theatres may not be present; one only needs an Internet-enabled device and data connection to access content of their liking. The movie-going experience today, therefore, needs to be one like no other. The audience is more discerning about spending around ₹2,000 on a movie ticket since watching the movie is only a part of the experience. “People will go to the theatre with their friends and family, buy tickets and also buy some food. That’s almost four to five hours from someone’s busy day, which they could’ve spent at home choosing from many more options on their screens by paying much less for a whole year. Obviously, people’s time and spending [choices] will have to be better justified now, so films that should draw people into theatres must feel more like events,” points out Nahta, corroborating Rathi’s observations about generating some fear of missing out among the audience.

Re-released movies: Old wine in an old bottle?

The verdict is out: there is a demand and supply disparity, with a supply gap that needs plugging when new films with that “theatrical experience” have gone missing from Bollywood’s rosters. “There are so many weeks between two theatrical releases when there’s no new release,” says Vishek Chauhan, film distributor and CEO of Roopbani Cinema, a movie theatre in Bihar’s Purnea.

Enter old films, some of which are, in fact, doing better at the theatres than they did during their maiden runs. So if the audience doesn’t have a fear of missing out on new films at theatres, might as well tempt them back with old ones that work—thanks to not just nostalgia among the older generations, but also curiosity among the younger ones who were either not born or were too young when a film had originally released. Moreover, according to Chauhan, films from the 90s, like Karan Arjun or even Govinda’s Hero No. 1 (1997) had the potential to build legacies by creating franchises that would run on the fan base of the original film, lending them a larger-than-life quality.

“If [producer] Vashu Bhagnani re-releases a Raja Babu (1994) or Hero No. 1 today, that might find some traction in theatres. I even told his son Jackky that they should either re-release, remake or franchise Raja Babu or Hero No. 1. There is a lot of potential in those films even today,” reveals Chauhan, emphasising what sets them apart from the new-age entertainers.

It’s what keeps 26-year-old Sonia Shankar from Delhi glued to the big screen, especially for older films. “I have watched almost every single old Hindi film that re-released this year in the theatres. How could I miss this opportunity?” she says. Her claim holds true despite the list being fairly exhaustive: from Chak De! India (2007), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), Jab We Met (2007), Taal (1999), Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), to Tumbbad (2018), Laila Majnu (2018), Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein (2001), and Pardes (1997), among others. At the time of this interview, Shankar was planning on catching the re-released shows of Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) and Karan Arjun (1995) in November.

“I was five when Kal Ho Naa Ho was released and remember going to the theatre with my parents to watch it. I have vivid memories of the songs but I want to relive those moments this time round, preferably with my parents,” beams Shankar. “I was blown away watching Chak De! India in the theatre this year, which I couldn’t catch on the big screen when it came out. I don’t think any of the new films released this year could parallel that experience. The closest I came to feeling that thrill was with Jawan (2023), another Shah Rukh film.”

But the fact that most of these films, despite being available for watching on streaming platforms, are continuing to grab eyeballs, made Ashish Pandey curious. The head of programming and strategic initiatives at Cineline India (MovieMax), Pandey deployed his resources to find out what is driving audiences to watch films in theatres if they can watch them sitting on their beds. “I asked cinema managers to check with the audience and conduct some interviews and surveys. Turns out, besides an older audience watching them out of nostalgia, it’s a younger audience that’s keen on rewatching these films on a big screen, even if they have already watched it on a small screen,” says Pandey.

The theatres continue to be a universal leveller and unifier like no other, as Chauhan points out, while “digital is a divider”. According to him, the communal experience of watching a film with an auditorium full of strangers remains unparalleled. Nahta agrees. “It’s never the same experience every time you go to watch a film in the theatre,” he says, adding that the novelty in the unfamiliarity of the terrain of a movie theatre as opposed to the familiarity of one’s home is an experience that will never not find takers. “You can’t compare the experience of watching a film alone or with two others at home to watching one after the lights are out, with two friends and 250 people you don’t know and may never meet again. It’s still an out-of-body experience that proves that the movie theatre will not die.”

But while the demand for this may never completely go away, filmmakers will have to work harder to make sure they don’t take their audience for granted. “The audience isn’t stupid. We can’t assume that the audience doesn’t know what they want—they know exactly what they want, and they’ll make sure the filmmakers know too,” says Chauhan.

Keeping the movie theatre experience alive

While the decision to re-release an old film lies largely on the producers or entities who own the distribution rights to a film, theatres and multiplex chains play an equally important part in turning it into a successful venture. Commenting on this growing trend, Niharika Bijli, lead strategist at PVR Inox, says: “Our re-release strategy is more than just a nod to the past; it’s a dynamic approach to bringing iconic films like Rockstar, Jab We Met, and Tumbbad back to the big screen, where they continue to captivate audiences,” she says. “Through carefully crafted strategic plans, we’ve seen remarkable success with re-releases, transforming classics into new cultural moments.”

The Sohum Shah- and Aanand L. Rai-produced horror fantasy Tumbbad, in fact, made nearly double the revenue at the box office (₹27 crore) upon its re-release six years after its original release. This has—in objective terms—made it a better performer than a lot of recent big-budget, star-studded films like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Jigra or Vedaa, among several others. “What is ₹30 crore for a Tumbbad, is obviously a lot bigger than a Jigra, which stopped at around ₹35 crore. Or even Triptii Dimri’s Laila Majnu revived when she’s fresh off the success of Animal (2023) must have made ₹7 or ₹9 crore when the budget of the film itself was ₹3 or ₹4 crore. Their performances have been phenomenal,” says Nahta.

But could this hack be a solution to luring audiences back to cinema halls? Absolutely not, is the unanimous response. Chauhan points to the fact that what was a novelty in theatres during the late 2000s right up till the pandemic—like the slice-of-life, small north Indian-town stories, “which actors like Ayushmann Khurrana made a living out of”—have now migrated to OTT. As a result, people need to be incentivised with an experience they can’t find at home. “People have clearly put their stamp on films like Gadar, Pathaan, Jawan, Tiger, Stree and the likes as the ones they’d want to watch in the theatres, and that is what we should make note of,” says Chauhan.

Cutting through the clutter

Actor Vipin Sharma—who recently starred in Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man—hasn’t caught any of the re-released films in a theatre, but continues to get love for his Gangs of Wasseypur that a new audience discovered on the big screen earlier this year. “That film was new for its times. Today, every film looks the same, you can’t tell them apart,” says Sharma. These are interesting times, according to him, when the Hindi film industry is being compelled to rethink its understanding of entertainment. “There are mega-budget films with big stars that haven’t done any business, but there are small films with no stars that have done really well at the box office. Every film and every genre has a place, so milking only one genre repeatedly doesn’t make any sense. So the industry needs to start thinking and doing better,” he adds. This “doing better” also entails filmmakers and producers putting their money on an audience that lives beyond south Bombay and south Delhi.

Films, in order to draw in an audience, need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, among whom the stars are made. “When filmmakers ask what kind of audience they should make a film for, I tell them that if you make a film for the audience in Patna, it’ll automatically also be for an audience in Mumbai. People will then come back to the theatres and we won’t have to pull an Anil Sharma or a Raj Santoshi out of the fridge. Writers today don’t know how to write films like that for a wider audience,” explains Chauhan.

“Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh, and Salman Khan weren’t made in the boxes—they were made in the stalls where people go to catch their films first-day-first-show at six in the morning. These are the people who have made them the stars by dancing to their songs when they play in the theatres, throwing money at them, and keeping cinema alive.”

Therefore, not making a film for the person living in the smallest corner of the country is not only a disservice to the audience, but also to the craft of cinema. It’s a delicate game of checks and balances where for four films that are targetted at a multiplex-going urban audience, 10 need to be made for the peri-urban and rural audience because “that’s the bread and butter” as Rathi points out. “It’s a formula that the biggest stars, filmmakers, and decision-makers are thankfully making a note of,” he says. “Look at the 2025 slate so far—you have big releases from Shah Rukh and Salman. There’s Ranbir [Kapoor]—an actor who is all about rom-coms—doing Love and War and Ramayana after an Animal. Shahid Kapoor, who, back in the day was doing Vishal Bhardwaj films, is doing an out-and-out mass action entertainer like Deva. Yash Raj Films, which was all about producing NRI-friendly epic romances, is now all about the spy universe. So, clearly, this is happening all over.”

Nostalgia can only fill seats temporarily; the challenge in the months ahead lies in reimagining entertainment on big screens for an audience that is steadfastly loyal to its phone screens.

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