Need stakeholders, not employees!

Therersquos a definite crisis in the Hindi film industry Films arenrsquot working as they should South Indian cinema has taken over the Hindi marketOTT is the easier alternative to excel in For one every middleclass home has a bigscreen TV And you can eat your homecooked snacks fresh off the air fryer We need audiences to come back in droves into cinemasmdashto see Hindi filmsWhyrsquos that not happening in the way it should Herersquos the real deal straight from logicIrsquove witnessed enough actorsproducersdirectors escape from their one primary responsibilitymdashyoursquove got one jobmdashto make films that sell ticketsYes independent cinema yes cinema as art yes cinema that has a voice yes noir yes abstract yes brave new cinema yes cinema for festivals yes niche cinemahellip Why not yes cinema that sells ticketsBecause everybody in this generation knows cinema that is taught at film schoolmdashcinema in theory cinema as technology Yet technically anybody can be a filmmaker or actor without that one basic qualificationmdashknowledge of the audienceThey donrsquot buy tickets themselves why should their audience Why not straightforward entertainment then Why not understand what made Raj Kapoor and Vijay Anand tick with their audiencesTheir retrospective tributes ran to full houses across the country in 2024 defying all logic Why not great music created by human beans not machines and synthesisers Because everybody is evading the real reason for the collapsemdashsimply enough tickets are not being soldOTT is free watching films on gadgets is free But itrsquos not only about the filmmakers The other side of this coin is equally and completely scaryLetrsquos now look at the prohibitive cost of multiplex tickets that is equally to blame for the decline in ticket salesA country where merely over two per cent of the total population pays income tax means that almost 98 per cent percent of the population earns an average of roughly speaking between Rs 15000 to Rs 40000 per month How can they pay Rs 250 Rs 360 Rs 500 upwards per ticket They canrsquotSo the multiplex chain caters to only about two per cent of the country what about the rest Are they not entitled to see big cinema on the big screenBut rsquoplexes are shutting down the single screens and most of the lower and middleclass audiences are watching films four to seven weeks post the cinema release on OTT Or especially the kids hacking sites and watching films they pirateThe rsquoplex sells popcorn and beverages at humongous prices And mine their realestatemdashby showing hours of ads through parking charges and asking producersdistributors to pay to show promotional material of their filmsThe production sector doesnrsquot know their audience the exhibitors are not in the business of cinema theyrsquore in the food and real estate businessNow whatThe basic difference between South Indian cinema industries and the Hindi film industry is one wordmdashthe bulk of that industry is made up of lsquostakeholdersrsquo of the business The bulk of the Hindi film industry is made up of employeesThere are very few stakeholders left in Bollywood Aditya Chopra Rakesh Roshan Suneel Darshan are three that I can name offhand They own their filmsSo letrsquos go back to the drawing board letrsquos create a simpler ticketpricing package letrsquos keep our ownership and become stakeholders Letrsquos have a stake in the success of each film we make each rsquoplex we build each deal we do Letrsquos be makers and then go back to the cinemasThe audience will come3040Estimated percentage of how much Bollywoodrsquos theatrical revenues dropped in 2024