Spoilers Ahead by Rajeev Masand: Drama in real life
By the time you’re reading this, Bollywood’s two big Diwali releases will be in cinemas already, and each will either be on its way to becoming a hit, or losing ground
By the time you’re reading this, Bollywood’s two big Diwali releases will be in cinemas already, and each will either be on its way to becoming a hit, or losing ground. Except without any of the drama that, until recently, had become a staple accompaniment of the festive season release ‘war’.
For decades now the Diwali release window has been a coveted spot for film producers, given the promise of heavy footfalls over an extended national holiday weekend. Even average (and many below-average) films have perfromed well when producers have shrewdly timed them to open during a period when audiences tend to be more forgiving. The critically reviled Housefull 4, which even die-hard Akshay Kumar fans admit is the weakest film in that comedy franchise, collected some ₹208 crore after opening over the Diwali weekend in 2019. Despite critical drubbing and unanimously poor word of mouth, Salman Khan and his Hum Aapke Hain Koun director Sooraj Barjatya’s insipid family saga, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, opened big and collected a more-than-respectable ₹210 crore after its release over the Diwali weekend in 2015.
The accepted industry logic is, the bigger the film and the more popular the movie star, the greater the chance to smash the box-office. Which explains why producers will ‘book’ or ‘block’ the Diwali weekend as early as a year before their film may be anywhere close to being completed. When more than one film is slated to release in that same coveted window, the ‘clash’ inevitably leads to the kind of drama that can drive a rift through old friendships (at least temporarily) and force industry folk to pick sides.
Big bang theory
In 2007, battle lines were drawn when Shah Rukh Khan’s Om Shanti Om and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya were both being prepped for release over Diwali. Om Shanti Om had been touted as the mother of all entertainers, with chartbusting songs and more cameos than you can count on your fingers and toes. Saawariya was Bhansali’s follow up to his 2005 game-changer, Black, and marked the debut of two promising young actors from the biggest film families.
When asked about the clash between the two films in an interview just weeks before D-Day, Shah Rukh famously declared war on the competition: “I will destroy them if they release with us.” An angry Bhansali, in a separate interview, was aghast that the superstar was taking on newcomers. “Do they put food on our table that they can destroy us?” he responded to SRK’s missile.
As it turned out, Om Shanti Om flattened Saawariya at the box-office that Diwali, and years later Bhansali compared the failure of that film to the “falling of the Twin Towers”.
Both older and seemingly wiser, Shah Rukh and his Devdas director clashed again in 2015. Months after Bhansali’s producers had ‘reserved’ the Diwali slot for Bajirao Mastani, SRK and Rohit Shetty picked the same weekend for Dilwale. But this time they refrained from public ugliness. The tables were turned however, with Bajirao pummelling Dilwale at the turnstiles.
Only a few Diwalis prior, in 2011 specifically, another Shah Rukh starrer was poised to break box-office records. The superstar’s passion project, Ra.One, a VFX extravaganza which was reportedly the most expensive film until then, had somehow managed to emerge the only significant Bollywood release that festive weekend. With no competition in sight, and SRK’s massive marketing muscle in full flex, the industry expected nothing short of fireworks. But both critical and fan response to the film was tepid. Filmmaker Shirish Kunder, whose own directorial debut Jaan-e-Mann had been vanquished by Shah Rukh’s Don during Diwali 2006, delivered what many considered a low blow when he took to Twitter to retweet some less-than-flattering reviews of Ra.One, and critically, he posted himself: “I just heard a ₹150 cr firework fizzle.”
That wasn’t one of the harshest responses the film had evoked, but coming from Kunder, whose wife Farah Khan had been a close friend of SRK, the tweet was regarded as an act of betrayal.
Rift valley system
A year later, in 2012, another Shah Rukh film was up for release during Diwali. Jab Tak Hai Jaan, which turned out to be the swan song of legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra, was opening against Ajay Devgan’s Son of Sardaar, and while the two stars were never known to be the best of friends, they had managed to stay cordial over the years. In the days leading up to the release of the films, Ajay, who had produced Sardaar, took on Yash Raj Films legally, claiming they had used their “dominant position as a leading film studio” to manipulate exhibitors into blocking the majority of cinema screens for Jab Tak Hai Jaan, leaving significantly fewer screens for his film. The case didn’t go far, but both films performed respectably.
The clash between Ajay’s directorial venture, Shivaay, with Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, both of which released over the Diwali weekend in 2016, led to a rift between Karan and his childhood friend and frequent muse, Kajol, after the actress sided with her husband in a scenario that pitted Ajay against Karan. In his memoir, An Unsuitable Boy, which was published the following year, Karan revealed that he felt no emotion for her anymore, and that declaration, along with post-mortems of their fallout, received more press than you can imagine.
Over the years, the high stakes business of Diwali releases and the drama it spawned has entertained just about everyone who has nothing at stake. But in a post pandemic world where Bollywood has taken especially long to return to its past glory, and where current box-office collections are a shadow of their former self, there is little appetite for wars and clashes. It’s no longer, “May the best film win.” For the collective health of Bollywood, the industry is clear. “May both films win.”
Formerly a film journalist, Rajeev Masand currently heads a talent management agency in Mumbai
From HT Brunch, October 29, 2022
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