Bollywoodhungama has some inside rumors about Fitoor to go along with their box office figures from the weekend (which are dismal).  But in a bigger sense, they bring up the question, what does this mean for UTV as a studio?  I am wondering, what does it mean for all the studios?  Is this a sign of a change of times?

Bollywoodhungama is claiming that Fitoor opened to even emptier theaters than Bombay Velvet, the previous top-flop of all time.  And it points out that this is UTV’s second high profile flop in a row after Tamasha.  But what I am wondering, is if both of those flops, and Bombay Velvet before them, came out of a tipping point in a certain kind of film production and release strategy.

For years now, since liberalization of the economy brought in the funding that allowed studios to expand, studios have been trying to break free of the star system.  As it stands, there are only about 6 big names in India that can really open a film.  They charge enormous rates, but more than that, they are a rare commodity.  Back when production houses were smaller, producers could afford to wait years between releases, until a big name would be free.  Or else to release smaller films for smaller profits.  But now, studios are looking for a way to release multiple films each year and have each of them be a hit.

The tactic they have been trying is to build their own stars from the ground up.  Aditya Chopra has been the best at this, because he is the best at everything, discovering and/or developing Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Siddharth Malhotra, Parineeta Chopra, Anushka Sharma, Alia Bhatt, and various others.  And of course the Bhatts are masters at this, mostly by just using their own relatives (Pooja Bhatt, Emraan Hashmi, now Udita Goswami has married in).  There’s no waiting for a star to be free, if you have your own in house talent.

This is a fine tactic, up to a point.  Your Alia Bhatts and Arjun Kapoors can easily carry a film like 2 States, with plenty of support from character actors, a clever script, a great soundtrack, and a competent director.  Fairly low budget, fairly limited release, makes a nice profit.  Of course, this system doesn’t generate a guaranteed hit.  You are still going to get the sagging box office films like Katti-Batti, Kill/Dil, Besharam.

The real problem comes when this same theory is extended to directors.  Back in the day, directors were also producers.  You had to really believe in your film to take a risk on making it, but you also really needed to make sure it made a profit because otherwise you would be bankrupt.  There are still plenty of smaller houses that work like this.  But the big production houses want to release 3-4 films a year, and the same person can’t possible direct them all.  Three of the biggest production houses (Dharma, Yash Raj, and Excel) are run by all time great and all time profitable producer/directors (Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, and Farhan Akhtar).  They are able to find and develop young directors, to closely supervise them and steer them in a direction that is both artistically and financially successful.

But what’s the situation at UTV?  There, you have these directors like Imtiaz Ali and Abhishek Kapoor who never had to worry about profit and loss or marketability, because they’ve never produced their own films.  And they’re given a blank check and no supervision.  And the studio has no idea if the film works or not, so they just promote it like crazy and print up a million prints, because they think the director knows what he is doing.  In the case of Fitoor, not only did Abhishek Kapoor charge 10 crore upfront, the studio let him pick his own story, his own stars, and even looked the other way when he drove Rekha off the set with his crazy demands.  The studio made the wrong decision over and over again.

I doubt it will actually happen, but I would love it if this series of director-driven flops leads back to an awareness of the importance of having an actual proven successful artist running your studio, instead of just some guy with an MBA from Harvard.  Or even better, an awareness that putting all your faith (and money) in a director instead of a Star, is just trading one bad bargain for a much worse one.  A Star is expensive, and arrogant, and still can’t guarantee a superhit film, but they have forgotten more about the movie industry than any MBA, or hotshot young director, could ever learn.