Worldwide, the ratings from the movie portal Internet Movie Database (IMDb) ratings play a huge role in determining a person's mind to watch a particular movie in the theatre or at home! Even though these ratings neutralize over time, IMDB ratings continue to be a major driver of a person's choice to watch a movie in theatres or not which contributes to its box office collection that describes a movie's fate as a Flop/Average/Hit.
Of recently, the platform has been grossly been misused because even if a movie is a good movie and worthy money-spinner, it does not get it due credit at the place where it matters the most: The Ticket Windows and gets declared as a Flop. There are certain movies which in spite of no content and poor ratings still manage to rake in money, the movie in question being Baaghi 3 (2020) which raked in 95 crores at the Box office, undeservingly. Another instance where the movie worked because of the only star power is Race 3 (2018) which managed 166 crores at the box office. While as fore-mentioned movies deserve the IMDb ratings they have, their box office collection speaks otherwise!
Great movies like Chhapaak (2020), Thappad (2020), Mulk (2018) all flopped and have low IMDb ratings even though they were great movies. They even have a decent amount of star power to attract the audience to the theatres but unfortunately, all of these folded below 35 crores and were all mid-budget affairs. However, with time the rating of Mulk has neutralized to a worthy score of 7.2/10, the others have a long way to go! So why do these movies with good content, decent star value fail? The most likely answer for this can be attributed to the rise of Hyper-Nationalism in the country. All of these fore-mentioned movies had a prominent figure of the movie who opposed certain particular government policy and thus their movies faced boycott. The biggest example is Chhapaak, which deserved a higher box office collection than what it earned eventually.
This can also be confirmed by the success of movies which depict extreme nationalism. The mammoth success of movies like Uri (2019), Kesari (2019), Toilet (2018) are a testament to this fact. Not saying that these were bad movies, it is just that these movies did not 'deserve' the rating they have on IMDb (all over 7). For example, at the time of release, Uri was riding high with an IMDb score between 9.5-10 which I believe this movie did not deserve. This 9.5-10 score on IMDb reflected in the movie's collections where it earned 245.55 crores and was an all-time blockbuster. Same goes for Kesari and Toilet.
All in all, not saying that the phenomenon of hyper-nationalism is wrong (since we never saw it for the longest time until 2014), it is simply incorrect to MIX a movie and a person's personal political inspiration. We have seen this phenomenon rise exponentially and making money so now, it has started affecting the kind of cinema we see. The recently released 'Commando-3' movie was absolutely a decent action movie where all of a sudden towards the last 20 minutes, 'unity' and 'nationalism' sprung up and a strictly average movie became 'good' in the eyes of the public and managed to break-even at the ticket windows! Another instance where the love for the country developed out of nowhere was in the movie 'Pagalpanti' (2019) which too, earned decently but (gladly) flopped due to its high budget! For example, for Commando-3 people were like 'Message was Good only if the direction/execution could have been better.' This fact suggests that even a bad movie might do wonders at the box office if it has a 'nationalistic' flavour to it! If we start mixing Cinema with Political Aspirations, the cinema shall be headed into a direction where creativity and novelty shall take a backseat and each and every movie shall end up having a nationalistic touch to them!
This phenomenon of 'rating down' something due to credentials was first observed when Snapchat CEO said: "He shall not expand in poor countries like India and Spain." Post which, our countrymen uninstalled Snapchat and rated it 1 star whereas Spanish decided to work harder and prove him wrong! So we can observe that our countrymen chose a 'more-convenient' way of dealing with the situation than actually put in the effort to prove him wrong. It is highly likely a similar approach was taken in case of the fore-mentioned movies without even thinking the effort and time that goes into making a movie (can vouch for it having worked in one!) Hence, we need to clearly separate Cinema as a different industry and politics as a different industry. Intermingling the two, would lead to a disastrous result and monotonous movies!
Of recently, the platform has been grossly been misused because even if a movie is a good movie and worthy money-spinner, it does not get it due credit at the place where it matters the most: The Ticket Windows and gets declared as a Flop. There are certain movies which in spite of no content and poor ratings still manage to rake in money, the movie in question being Baaghi 3 (2020) which raked in 95 crores at the Box office, undeservingly. Another instance where the movie worked because of the only star power is Race 3 (2018) which managed 166 crores at the box office. While as fore-mentioned movies deserve the IMDb ratings they have, their box office collection speaks otherwise!
Great movies like Chhapaak (2020), Thappad (2020), Mulk (2018) all flopped and have low IMDb ratings even though they were great movies. They even have a decent amount of star power to attract the audience to the theatres but unfortunately, all of these folded below 35 crores and were all mid-budget affairs. However, with time the rating of Mulk has neutralized to a worthy score of 7.2/10, the others have a long way to go! So why do these movies with good content, decent star value fail? The most likely answer for this can be attributed to the rise of Hyper-Nationalism in the country. All of these fore-mentioned movies had a prominent figure of the movie who opposed certain particular government policy and thus their movies faced boycott. The biggest example is Chhapaak, which deserved a higher box office collection than what it earned eventually.
This can also be confirmed by the success of movies which depict extreme nationalism. The mammoth success of movies like Uri (2019), Kesari (2019), Toilet (2018) are a testament to this fact. Not saying that these were bad movies, it is just that these movies did not 'deserve' the rating they have on IMDb (all over 7). For example, at the time of release, Uri was riding high with an IMDb score between 9.5-10 which I believe this movie did not deserve. This 9.5-10 score on IMDb reflected in the movie's collections where it earned 245.55 crores and was an all-time blockbuster. Same goes for Kesari and Toilet.
All in all, not saying that the phenomenon of hyper-nationalism is wrong (since we never saw it for the longest time until 2014), it is simply incorrect to MIX a movie and a person's personal political inspiration. We have seen this phenomenon rise exponentially and making money so now, it has started affecting the kind of cinema we see. The recently released 'Commando-3' movie was absolutely a decent action movie where all of a sudden towards the last 20 minutes, 'unity' and 'nationalism' sprung up and a strictly average movie became 'good' in the eyes of the public and managed to break-even at the ticket windows! Another instance where the love for the country developed out of nowhere was in the movie 'Pagalpanti' (2019) which too, earned decently but (gladly) flopped due to its high budget! For example, for Commando-3 people were like 'Message was Good only if the direction/execution could have been better.' This fact suggests that even a bad movie might do wonders at the box office if it has a 'nationalistic' flavour to it! If we start mixing Cinema with Political Aspirations, the cinema shall be headed into a direction where creativity and novelty shall take a backseat and each and every movie shall end up having a nationalistic touch to them!
This phenomenon of 'rating down' something due to credentials was first observed when Snapchat CEO said: "He shall not expand in poor countries like India and Spain." Post which, our countrymen uninstalled Snapchat and rated it 1 star whereas Spanish decided to work harder and prove him wrong! So we can observe that our countrymen chose a 'more-convenient' way of dealing with the situation than actually put in the effort to prove him wrong. It is highly likely a similar approach was taken in case of the fore-mentioned movies without even thinking the effort and time that goes into making a movie (can vouch for it having worked in one!) Hence, we need to clearly separate Cinema as a different industry and politics as a different industry. Intermingling the two, would lead to a disastrous result and monotonous movies!
Keep it up
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be true.
DeleteIn india a lot of people are carrried away by pictures.
And to move the masses this has become a handy tool.
The timming of realease of uri is certainly to be watched