Offbeat ok, but janta still wants stars in movies

The avant garde storytellers have arrived. But is the box office ready for change? Week after week, the industry is serving something new, adventurous, and experimental at the hustings.

The movies are winning critical acclaim too. But have they ended up as commercially viable ventures or is the current neo wave going to share a fate akin to the new wave films of the 1970s: diamonds at the festival circuit, ashes in the home market?

Take a look at the opening collections for A Wednesday , and you might just get the big picture. The film is a stylish, topical thriller peppered with some great performances by almost all the actors, led by Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher.

But the opening collections are meagre with just 20% occupancy in the first two days. The film might just pick up after the opening weekend, buoyed by the favourable reviews and word of mouth. But there is a harsh reality that stares Bollywood in its face: bravados okay, but the aam aadmi is still hungry for stars in his movies.

Earlier this year, the Rajeev Khandelwal, Aamir too met with a similar cold shoulder, despite the good reviews and the media thumbs up. And last week, Mumbai Meri Jaan , another enthralling film on the Mumbai train blasts, ended up winning just bytes and column space, but no moolah . The film has been dubbed 'below average' by the trade papers, with a two-week collection of Rs 3 crore only.

In an industry, where bottom lines matter the most, it is indeed disturbing to note the box office results of most of the films that have tried to break new ground in the last two years. Black Friday , Manorama Six Feet Under , Parzania , Missed Call have been financial duds, even though these film did manage to raise the bar of our formula-ridden film industry.

They were all intelligent stories, told with panache. Ironically, they found no takers, neither in the metros, nor in the small cities, where some of them weren't even released. Take for instance a film like ‘Missed Call’ which may have gone unnoticed by the Indian janata, but the dark comedy on youth angst is still winning awards at the international film festivals, after being featured in the Indian Panorama, 2006.

Of course, the picture isn't all bleak. Hope still floats with the market ferreting out a brand new audience which it claims as the ‘multiplex' audience. The longevity of this chapter of Parallel Cinema, Part 2 depends solely on the yuppie popcorn crunchers who have begun to throng the multiplexes in search of the ‘zara hatke’ experience. Films like Bheja Fry , Khosla Ka Ghosla , Mithya , Khuda Ke Liye have managed to make business sense simply because the young and restless Indians are scouting for my-kinda movies, my-kinda music, my-kinda maza a.

Rock On is the latest success story scripted by them. The film familiar story, unconventional style has managed to whip up quite a storm, apart from collecting a decent Rs 10 crore in its first week. According to director Abhishek Kapoor, certain multiplexes have even had to organize repeat shows on popular demand. The winds of change are blowing across Bollywood. Slowly, but surely.