Bad Bollywood films flood streaming sites

HOW A LACK OF ONLINE QUALITY CONTROL IS DAMAGING HINDI CINEMA

by ASJAD NAZIR

THERE was a time if a film failed badly at the box office it would put Bollywood producers out of business and cut short careers of lead stars, even if they were related to someone famous.

The massive money being pumped in by popular streaming sites has changed all of that because most are buying pretty much everything Bollywood has to offer and that lack of quality control is not only badly damaging the industry, but cheating audiences.

2019 release Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas was so bad that it crashed at the box office, got savage reviews, killed the career of debutante Karan Deol and led to his famous father Sunny Deol vowing to take a break from filmmaking, yet streaming sites happily picked it up and it’s currently available on ZEE5. Panipat: The Great Betrayal was another huge 2019 disaster, yet it’s available on Netflix. Laal Kaptaan, Milan Talkies, Prassthanam and Notebook were all 2019 disasters, yet can be seen on Amazon Prime. Meanwhile, Hotstar scooped up 2019 mega-flop India’s Most Wanted. Lootcase was supposed to be released in cinemas last October, but kept getting delayed because of lack of interest and now it will have a streaming site world premiere. These are some recent examples of flop films being dumped on to streaming sites, but it’s a trend that has been happening for a number of years.

Now most producers know they can make bad films, fuel nepotism and produce self-indulgent projects because streaming sites are providing them with a safety net. Being guaranteed money for even the most awful projects is promoting laziness in the subjects and giving repeated chances to talentless stars because they are related to someone famous. This is subsequently closing the door to new talent and fuelling nepotism.

When Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney Hotstar recently announced their respective slate of Bollywood premieres, most had one thing in common and that is they would have been disasters at the box office had cinemas been open. Now producers of these seeming disasters will have money to make more movies.

Perhaps the worst offender is Netflix, which has become a dumping ground for Bollywood garbage. Netflix has gone a step further than buying rubbish content from Hindi cinema by actively financing it. The streaming site gave money to terrible writer-director Shirish Kunder to deliver an original film despite his previous two attempts at features being disasters and the result was Mrs Serial Killer, which is a frontrunner for worst movie of 2020.

Meanwhile, Amazon Prime sponsored the Filmfare Awards earlier this year and all but destroyed the little credibility it had left. The longest running Bollywood award ceremony ended up giving a record-breaking number of trophies to Amazon Prime movie Gully Boy, which was more than any iconic Hindi film had ever received.

Although the extra money streaming sites are providing is a lifeline for producers at a time when cinemas are closed due to Covid-19, their astonishing lack of quality control is doing long-term damage to Bollywood and can’t be a good business model in the long run.

So the next time you are struggling to find something decent to watch it’s likely because the little good content is hidden in the mountain of rubbish streaming sites are happily creating in their race to have the most content.