Hollywood & Bollywood (Header): Big-ticket Bollywood films that failed to live up to the hype

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Big-ticket Bollywood films that failed to live up to the hype

Despite all the pre-release hype, mega budget film 'Bombay Velvet' has failed to live up to expectations. A look at other highly anticipated movies that proved to be damp squibs...

Hype is as much part of the moviemaking business as the film itself. Be it the lead actors' charm or the PR machinery going on overdrive, many projects are surrounded by enormous media build-up before their release. While that may ensure a great opening, it is not necessary that the movie will be a hit. A case in point is Anurag Kashyap's 'Bombay Velvet', which hit the marquee last Friday.

Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma in a still from 'Bombay Velvet'. The film, which was made on a budget of over Rs 130 crore, has managed to collect only around Rs 16 crore in its opening weekend

Made on a humongous budget apparently exceeding Rs 130 crore, the film has managed to collect only Rs 16.10 crore in its opening weekend. Right from recreating Bombay of the '50s and '60 in Sri Lanka to having a never-seen-before jodi (Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma), the film got a lot of publicity only to leave the audience sighing eventually.

Hitlist gives you a lowdown on some films that failed to live up to the hype surrounding them...

Jai Ho

Budget: Rs 75-80crore
Collections: Rs 116crore
Lowdown: Known as the boss of the box office, Salman Khan has delivered many big hits and raked in big bucks. His mere presence in a film automatically becomes its USP given his enormous fan following. This project also made headlines as the star was to romance a newcomer (Daisy Shah) and the media followed her to various events just for a glimpse. Though the film was expected to shatter all box office records, it didn't.

Himmatwala

Budget: Rs 70-80crore
Collections: Rs 30-40crore
Lowdown: It was riding high on a promotional blitzkrieg and the fact that it was a remake of the 1983 hit film with the Naino mein sapna song being reprised. But when it hit the big screen, it left the audience stunned. What was one of the most anticipated movies of 2013, turned out to be one of the biggest flops of the year, panned by the critics and audience alike. Though the Ajay Devgn and Tamannah Bhatia-starrer grossed R12 crore on its opening day, it could not sustain the momentum.

Blue

Budget: Rs 90-100crore
Collections: Rs 54crore
Lowdown: Publicised as Bollywood's first underwater action adventure flick, this Akshay Kumar-starrer couldn't stay afloat at the box office for a long time. The Anthony D'Souza-directed film even had a song featuring Kylie Minogue (Chiggy Wiggy) and was high on glamour and stunts. But the audience's reaction left the makers feeling blue. Besides Akki, the multistarrer featured Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan and Lara Dutta in lead roles.

Ra.One

Budget: Rs 130-140crore
Collections: Rs 140crore
Lowdown: Shah Rukh Khan's superhero movie was aggressively marketed as the star launched a Ra.One play station game and even got American singer Akon to croon in Hindi (Chammak Challo). The movie's promotions were done on a grand scale. Though it set off fireworks during its Diwali opening, the numbers dropped significantly in the second week.

Kites

Budget: Rs 60-70crore
Collections: Rs 45-50crore
Lowdown: Contrary to its title, the film crash landed at the box office despite breathtaking thrills, exotic locales and the presence of Mexican actress Barbara Mori opposite Hrithik Roshan. It was touted as Bollywood's first international project and made a lot of pre-release news - from a fallout between director Anurag Basu and producer Rakesh Roshan to an alleged affair between Hrithik and Barbara. Ticket rates hit the roof, but after a frenzied weekend, footfalls fell drastically.

Besharam

Budget: Rs 80-85crore
Collections: Rs 59crore
Lowdown: After a brilliant performance in 'Barfi', not only Ranbir Kapoor's fans but even critics had great expectations from him in this film. There was a lot of media hype about the young actor sharing screen space with his parents, Rishi and Neetu Kapoor, for the first time. However, the Abhinav Kashyap film failed to capitalise on all the PR buzz and Ranbir did not return to the screen for over a year.

Mausam
Budget: Rs 70-75crore
Collections: Rs 65-70crore
Lowdown: There was a lot of noise about Pankaj Kapur's directorial debut starring his son, Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor in lead roles. Even the film's poster was compared to a scene from the Oscar-winning 'Titanic' (1997). But when it was opened to the public, they gave it a thumbs down. While it had a fair opening in multiplexes, the crowd response in single screen theatres was rather dull.

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I am not dating Alia Bhatt: Varun Dhawan clarifies once and for all

In an interview with the tabloid Mumbai Mirror, Varun Dhawan has unleashed a bombshell by declaring he’ll never date an actress.

But wasn’t he recently linked with his SOTY co-star Alia Bhatt?

“I am not dating Alia,” Varun makes it clear.

And what about the Aashiqui 2 girl Shraddha Kapoor. Isn’t something brewing between Shraddha and him?

“If I say 'We are good friends', it will be misconstrued as 'Boyfriend Girlfriend',” says Varun.

Varun adds that he was amused to hear the rumour of his link-up with Bipasha Basu who is eight years his senior.

“She is quite senior to me. We spoke about the rumour and she said, 'Welcome to the film industry'.”

The youngster is presently busy with dad David Dhawan’s film Main Tera Hero and says, “I shall never date an actress.”

due courtesy to apunkachoice.com

Classical Hollywood cinema

Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative,[1] are terms used in film history which designate both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between 1927 and 1963. This period is often referred to as the "golden age of Hollywood." An identifiable cinematic form emerged during this period called classical Hollywood style.[2]

Classical style is fundamentally built on the principle of continuity editing or "invisible" style. That is, the camera and the sound recording should never call attention to themselves (as they might in films from earlier periods, other countries or in a modernist or postmodernistwork).

The golden age[edit]

During the golden age of Hollywood, which lasted from the end of the silent era in American cinema in the late 1920s to the early 1960s, films were prolifically issued by the Hollywood studios.[3] The start of the golden age was arguably when The Jazz Singer was released in 1927 and increased box-office profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a genre—Western, slapstick comedy, musical, animated cartoon, biopic (biographical picture)—and the same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. For instance, Cedric Gibbons and Herbert Stothart always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman worked at Twentieth Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. DeMille's films were almost all made at Paramount, director Henry King's films were mostly made for Twentieth-Century Fox, etc.

After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Brothers gained huge success and was able to acquire its own string of movie theatres, after purchasing Stanley Theatres and First National Productions in 1928; MGM had also owned a string of theatres since forming in 1924, known as Loews Theatres, and the Fox film Corporation owned the Fox Theatrestrings as well. Also, RKO, another company that owned theatres, had formed in 1928 from a merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America[3].

RKO formed in response to the monopoly Western Electric's ERPI had over sound in films as well, and began to use sound in films through their own method known as Photophone [5]. Paramount, who already acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO, and buy a number of theaters in the late 1920s as well, before making their final purchase in 1929, through acquiring all the individual theaters belonging to the Cooperative Box Office, located in Detroit, and dominate the Detroit theaters.[4]

However, filmmaking was still a business and motion picture companies made money by operating under the studio system. The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, craftspersons and technicians. And they owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across America, theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPDDA President Will Hays also founded the Hays (Production) Code, which followed censorship guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. [6] However the code was never enforced until 1934, after the new Catholic Church organization TheLegion of Decency—appalled by Mae West's very successful sexual appearances in She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel [7]—threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect [8], and those that didn't obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration had to pay a $25,000 fine and could not profit in the theaters, as the MPDDA owned every theater in the country through the Big Five studios [9].

Throughout the early 1930s, risque films and salacious advertising, became widespread in the short period known as Pre-Code Hollywood. MGM dominated the industry and had the top stars in Hollywood, and was also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether[10]. MGM stars included at various times "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable, Joan Fontaine, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Gary Cooper, Mary Pickford, Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, James Stewart, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Vivien Leigh, Grace Kelly, Gene Kelly, Gloria Stuart, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, John Wayne, Barbara Stanwyck, John Barrymore, Audrey Hepburn and Buster Keaton [11]. Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came throughWalt Disney's animation. In 1937, Disney created the most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [12].

Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented film-making. One reason this was possible is that, with so many films being made, not every one had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles and often regarded as the greatest film of all time, fits that description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock andFrank Capra battled the studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics asThe Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again,Young Mr. Lincoln, Wuthering Heights, Only Angels Have Wings,Ninotchka, Babes in Arms, Gunga Din, and The Roaring Twenties. Among the other films from the golden age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, King Kong, Citizen Kane, Swing Time, Some Like It Hot, A Night at the Opera, All About Eve, Mildred Pierce, The Searchers, Breakfast At Tiffany's, North by Northwest, Dinner at Eight, Rebel Without a Cause, Rear Window, Double Indemnity, Mutiny on the Bounty, City Lights,Red River, The Manchurian Candidate, Bringing Up Baby, Singin' in the Rain, To Have and Have Not, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Roman Holiday, Giant and Jezebel.

"Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Big-ticket Bollywood films that failed to live up to the hype

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