Superboys of Malegaon's Box Office disaster. What's the future of films?

Superboys of Malegaon, a perfectly fine film made at a budget of ₹20 Cr, has done a Box Office of ₹3.4 Cr only. This means a loss of over ₹18 Cr for the producers.

The film is an honest, sweet attempt to capture the spirit of dreams in an otherwise indifferent world. The travesty is that despite all the good intentions and honest efforts leading to a work of high art value, the film has found nothing but brutal indifference from the market it wished to serve. Nobody went to watch it in theatres, which will lead to it getting sold to OTTs for peanuts, roughly translating to producers losing their shirts for creating something good in the world of Hindi cinema.

Disclosure: A lot of people are living with the misconception that OTTs pay well, and thus losing out in the Box Office doesn't mean losing money for producers overall. Nothing couldn't be further from the truth. I learnt this from Rajat Kapoor Sir who once told me that Aankhon Dekhi, despite winning the Filmfare Award for Best Film (Critics) and getting produced for ₹6.5 Cr in 2013, got acquired by Netflix for ₹6 Lakhs only.

Why don't Indian audiences go out to watch good films in the theatres? After all, the internet is always abuzz with relentless criticism of the bad products of Indian cinema. Judging by the load roars of Indian netizens, one would think that a movie like Superboys of Malegaon (or Rk/Rkay) would manage to do well in the Box Office. After all, when was the last time us Indians got an honest, good film which meant something and didn't require us to leave our brains at home? The last Hindi movie I remember doing well which didn't absolutely insult my intelligence was Drishyam (or The Kashmir Files). They both came out in 2022.

We only get such movies once in three years. And then they do a Box Office of ₹3.4 Cr? What does this mean for the future of films, filmmaking and the film industry in general?

I've written a lot about it in the past. And to cut the long story short - films are going the music way. But what happened to music?

Music made money by selling product, and then came Napster. Music sales across the world were at $24 Bil in 1999, and since then, the entire music industry has shifted to streaming. But still, where's the money Lebowski?

In 2023, the global music industry saw "record breaking" sales of $28 Bil. While that's horrible in itself, what's important is that $24 Bil of 1999 translates to roughly $48 Bil in today's terms (inflation). So basically, even after 18 years of Spotify et al, the music industry isn't even HALF of what it was in 1999 (26 years ago). Not even close. Forget about growing the pie.

Streaming killed the music revenues for all practical purposes. And forever.

Now music sales are history. If the film industry loses out on Box Office and ticket sales also become history, who will make films? And why?

Music now only makes money through live gigs. What's the live gig equivalent of films? Plays? Hah! Someone's got to think..

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