100 Crore Club: Introduction

100 Crore Club: Introduction

Subtitle: Why the Three Khans (and Their Cohort) are Still the Only Hero Game in Town

“I keep telling some of the younger kids, I wouldn't name them, that they should also attempt the kind of cinema we're doing. This cinema, which comprises out-and-out entertainers, has mostly got 1 or 1.5 stars from critics. But, it's the audience that likes these movies. You have to show your art and talent to them.” - Ajay Devgn in the Times of India, 6/29/12.

In the old days, before multiplexes and satellite television and pirated VCDs, success was measured in weeks, not crores. Twenty-five weeks for a Silver Jubilee; fifty weeks for a Gold Jubilee; 100 weeks for a Diamond Jubilee. Film fans returned week after week to watch their favorite heroes dishoom bad guys and romance their favorite heroines. Those days have long gone. As the competition for India’s entertainment rupees grows tighter, the amount of time and attention and money that the public has to spend on repeat viewings of film has decreased significantly - which means that we needed a new benchmark for popular success. Enter the new number of popular success for a film in Bollywood: 100 crore, earned at the Indian box office, after the entertainment tax.*

As of this writing there are a mere twelve films in the 100 Crore Club. Starting in 2008, they list as follows:

Ghajini (2008) Aamir Khan, Asin

3 Idiots (2009) Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor

Dabangg (2010) Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha

Golmaal 3 (2010) Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor

Ready (2011) Salman Khan, Asin

Singham (2011) Ajay Devgn, Kajal Agarwal

Bodyguard (2011) Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor

Ra.One (2011) Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor

Don 2 (2011) Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra

Agneepath (2012) Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra

Housefull 2 (2012) Akshay Kumar, Asin

Rowdy Rathore (2012) Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha

Of the films listed, five are remakes of South Indian masala films; one is a remake of an older masala film; one is an original masala film; two are pure comedies; two were consciously made to appeal to as broad a family audience as possible; and one is straight action.

The Three Khans walk away with seven of the twelve titles; their age-cohort Ajay and Akshay have two apiece; and Hrithik Roshan, the baby of the bunch as the only 100 Crore Club hero under 40, has one.

Though the 100 Crore Club counts only the Indian box office, the list of highest grossing films tracks pretty closely, adding Shahrukh’s international release My Name is Khan.

“[The 100 Crore Club] are all massy films which are very basic in their understanding and high on entertainment. But if we run only to achieve those figures then we will restrict ourselves as actors. I feel that this should not be the sole agenda of making films. The idea is to discover ourselves in various spaces.” - Shahid Kapoor, who after a series of flops, just signed a project with 100 Crore Club “massy” director Prabuhdeva, IBN News

So, what does this all mean? Detractors of the 100 Crore Club tend to focus on two major points. The first is that making money is not a sign of a quality film. That much I’ll agree with. Plenty of wonderful films never catch on with the public. The second point is stickier. 100 Crore Club detractors take the first point—that not earning 100 crores doesn’t mean a film is worthless—and flips it, saying that, if therefore a film does earn 100 crores, it must be worthless. I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on that logical fallacy.

Here is what we should take away from the 100 Crore Club—these are films that a lot of people went out to see in the theater. That is what unifies them. I’ll get into the relative merits of a 3 Idiots versus a Ra.One in individual reviews but for now, I want to say that there is a reason Ajay Devgn has two movies in the 100 Crore Club and Shahid Kapoor has none and it has nothing to do with their relative merits as actors or even their choice of meaningful projects. The difference is that Ajay comes from a generation of actors who still understand how to play hero. One could dismissively say that the 100 Crore Club films are all massy entertainers but that doesn’t explain why they all struck a chord. Plenty films aiming to be massy entertainers never make a red cent at the box office. But if one flip the lens from the genre of film and looks at the real unifying factor, the answer becomes clear: the real unifying factor of these 100 Crore Club films is that they all feature capital H Heroes.

The massive success of Aamir Khan’s Ghajini signaled not just a return to the masala filmmaking techniques but a return of the aam aadmi’s beloved Hero. And, if you ask me, the reason the younger set of actors haven’t cracked the 100 Crore Club yet is because they don’t know how. They don’t know how to pick the kinds of films that will resonate with the masses and they don’t know herogiri. As of now, Shahid, Ranbir, Ranveer, et. al. are fine actors but they are no Heroes and until they listen to their seniors in the industry and start making films that connect with the general public, they won’t inspire the kind of loyalty that Shahrukh Khan can nor will they be able to wield the power of popular opinion like Aamir Khan can.** And maybe that’s fine for Ranbir and Imran, who might be content making human-sized films for an international and multiplex-going audience, but the need for that oversized, mythic storytelling that only a Hero can deliver will remain. Mass audiences might drift even more towards regional film or we might find that South Indian Heroes will drift North. (Ram Charan Teja’s Zanjeer remake is one to keep an eye on.)

I don’t think we can dismiss films merely for being broadly popular and I really don’t think we can conflate popular with mindless. Therefore, I wanted to take a serious (or as much as I get anyway) look at the films of the 100 Crore Club to see what’s really there, how well they hold up, and where they fit in the grand scheme of things. Over the next few weeks, starting with Ghajini and working my way through to Rowdy Rathore. The speed will depend on how easy it is for me to get my hands on them and how much time I have.

Fortunately, I already own Ghajini... and Golmaal 3. What? I like massy entertainers!

* Corrected and please see Moimeme's comment for a description of the tax.

**And, ironically, even as the young set of actors has yet to click with mass audiences, Kareena and Katrina have been shoring up their popularity. Who knows? Maybe instead of the Three Khans, the 2010s will be the decade of the Two K’s.

(Originally posted July 2, 2012)

In the decade since I originally posted this, the 100 Crore Club has become the 1000 Crore Club thanks to S.S. Rajamouli’s non-Bollywood, Telugu language film Bahubali 2: The Conclusion.