Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan have had a dream run at the box office for twenty years but now things have changed and their downslide has already begun. Sumita Chakraborty wonders whether the magical Khans will storm back on the number one position in 2022.
Ask any avid cine goer which stars have ruled Bollywood in the last two decades and more likely than not, the answer would be the magical ‘Khans’ – Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan. The Khans have enjoyed their superstar tags that veered from ‘Badshah’ to ‘Sultan’ and have been always considered head ‘n’ shoulders above the rest. Yes, Hrithik Roshan, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff, Ranbir Kapoor and some more younger stars have often challenged them at some point or the other but the end result was that, these young guns created a niche for themselves and the Khans continued to rule the Hindi film industry.
But then the unexpected happened… The pandemic hit the world and caused severe havoc. People were restricted from going out and a major lockdown happened. Theatres, malls and everything else closed down and a new norm of WFH (work from home) started. Suddenly, the world took a ‘360’ degrees turn and things changed drastically. Entertainment wise, the OTT platforms became larger than life and content became the real superstars. Sitting at home, viewers were exposed to world cinema and they started bingeing on good content. In comparison, the masala content of Bollywood seemed rather weak and puerile. Films that became huge successes only on the basis of who starred in them became a thing of the past and thus started the great change. Newer directors and actors became the flavours of the OTT.
Five years ago, Mirzapur and Inside Edge creator Karan Anshuman was shunned as a flop director. He had directed the dark Bangistan which was panned by the critics and the audience alike. However with the resurgence of the OTT, his original series ‘Mirzapur’ and ‘Inside Edge’ took the digital domain by storm, thus ushering in a new revolution. From then on, series like ‘Family Man’, ‘Gullak’, ‘Mumbai Diaries’, ‘Bombay Begums’ created a unique celluloid revolution wowing the couch binging audience. This further created newer unlikely heroes like Mohit Raina, Ali Fazal, Manoj Bajpayee, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Abhishek Bannerjee, Pankaj Tripathi, Jaydeep Ahlawat – names that have been struggling for years, but suddenly, they were crowned as the new heroes of the OTT. Big stars that looked down at the OTT domain were now looking at it as the ‘go to’ medium. In fact, top directors and stars like Salman Khan were even releasing their films on the OTT platforms.
So what changed things in the entertainment segment?Karan Anshuman avers, “Making content that keep the audience engaged became the foremost thing. For me, the giant leap was from films to coming to the digital medium. This was the right time to do this, and bring about a pioneering change in the way we perceived content in India. This is the future. Many big stars will come on this platform, no doubt about it. Everyone will be looking at this space.” Adding, “It is important for me to be here and do something different. Here one has to make quality content that would keep the audience engaged.”
What happened to the Khans?
Coming back to the Khans… it is a fact that much before the pandemic, the downslide for the Khans did initialise. Salman Khan’s biggest blockbuster ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ was in 2017, after that though his film ‘Bharat’ was a hit while ‘Dabangg 3’ and Antim were semi hits – they were definitely not up to the mark for a Salman starrer which had the reputation of crossing 100 crores within the first two days itself. Even Salman’s blockbuster TV reality show Bigg Boss has been garnering poor TRPs of 1.1 this year.
Likewise, Shah Rukh Khan whose last few films ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ (2017), ‘Fan’ and ‘Zero’ (2018) were duds at the Box office. After that, Shah Rukh took a long hiatus. In fact, there was a huge buzz that Shah Rukh Khan was sitting at home and rethinking his career from scratch. He started shooting for his next film Pathan in 2021.
Aamir too hasn’t had a dream run at the box office. His last hit film was ‘Dangal’ (2016) and after that both his films ‘Secret Superstar’ (2017) and ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ (2018) were super flops.
The pandemic actually gave the Khans respite – a time to sit back and introspect what was going wrong with their careers.
What actually was hitting the Khans?
The Khans have ruled the roost for years but time ‘n’ tide changes and so it did for the three larger than life Khans too. At 55 plus, Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir were not being accepted by the young viewers as romantic heroes. It was time for the Khans to play their age. Earlier anybody over 40 in Bollywood was relegated to “father’ roles but the Khans were not yet ready to relinquish their ‘superstar’ titles to act as daddies. So but obviously, they stopped connecting with the younger, more intelligent and well exposed to global cinema viewers, resulting in their films bombing at the box office.
The second reason could be the content itself. The Khans especially Salman was still stuck in the old much flogged masala formula that had given him hits twenty years ago. But it was obviously, not working now. It is a new world and the audience has changed. Shah Rukh after the flops of his last two films ‘Fan’ and ‘Zero’, did the wise thing – he just sat back and watched, while Aamir who always experiments started sitting at story narrations with new directors and storytellers.
Will the Khans get their superstardom back?
Perhaps not, in this new age world, concepts such as ‘superstardom’ have become obsolete. Unknown and unexpected names are grabbing the superstar tag every week. For instance, dubbed South film Pushpa: The Rise starring Allu Arjun and Rashmika Mandanna has currently caught the nation’s imagination especially the Hindi belt and has become a superhit. This film has caused such havoc that a film like ‘83’ starring Ranveer Singh was blown to smithereens in front of it. So viewers are experimenting with content – be it Hindi or any other regional language – and embracing the new.
What Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir should do?
In Hollywood, age is just a number. Till date, Meryll Streep, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Robert de Niro are considered superstars and their films still do exceptionally well at the box office. The Khans already have a phenomenal following that look forward to their every film release so that’s half the battle done. All they need to do is connect with the youth and the new viewers of today, and of course, honestly have a long and hard look at the mirror for the correct answers. When asked why ‘Antim’ had a damp squib of an opening, Salman Khan insisted that there was a perception that he was only performing a cameo in the film, so the audience presumably shirked away from seeing the film initially in theatres.
Perhaps the answer here is that the much-flogged content in ‘Antim’ has been done to death, if Salman who has some of the best story tellers, directors and talent at his beck ‘n’ call, could tap something newer and fresher, it would perhaps be more appreciated. Shah Rukh Khan supposedly has gone over and changed the content of ‘Pathan’ several times so that it could be his resurgence into this brave new world. Aamir too who never shirks from experimenting on newer content, is currently working on Lal Singh Chadda but he too has postponed the release of his film several times perhaps because of the pandemic. In fact, several films from ‘Jersey’ to ‘RRR’ have been postponed because of the pandemic resurgence.
Indeed, times have changed. Filmmakers including the magical Khans have to battle not only the pandemic and the lockdown but also the changing taste of the viewers and also the supremacy of the OTT. Can the Khan’s get back their fame, fortune and superstar tag again? We’ll just wait and watch…
Break 1: It is a fact that much before the pandemic, the downslide for the Khans did initialise.
Break 2: Suddenly, the world took a ‘360’ degrees turn and things changed drastically. Entertainment wise, the OTT platforms became larger than life and content became the real superstars.
Break 3: In this new age world, concepts such as ‘superstardom’ have become obsolete. Unknown and unexpected names are grabbing the superstar tag every week.
Break 4 When asked why ‘Antim’ had a damp squib of an opening, Salman Khan insisted that there was a perception that he was only performing a cameo in the film, so the audience presumably shirked away from seeing the film initially in theatres.
Break 5: Filmmakers including the magical Khans have to battle not only the pandemic and the lockdown but also the changing taste of the viewers and also the supremacy of the OTT.
Break 6: The Khans already have a phenomenal following that look forward to their every film release so that’s half the battle done. All they need to do is connect with the youth and the new viewers of today,
