New Delhi, India – When Raghav Bikhchandani discovered on social media that Gangs of Wasseypur, the acclaimed Indian blockbuster launched in 2012, was all set to hit the theatres in New Delhi once more, he knew he couldn’t miss it this time and even alerted a number of movie golf equipment and WhatsApp teams he was a part of.
For the 27-year-old copy editor, getting to observe the two-part movie felt like “lastly being launched to probably the most memed film in Indian popular culture” as he discovered himself commuting for 3 hours on an August afternoon to a seedy theatre within the metropolis’s Subhash Nagar neighbourhood to catch the film on the massive display screen.
“I got here into Hindi cinema a lot later in life, and I had missed out on seeing this on the massive display screen. Once I was finding out overseas in Chicago, even NRIs in my college would quote dialogues from this film however I had by no means gotten an opportunity to see it. So I knew I couldn’t miss this chance,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Based mostly in a mining city in jap India on a decades-long feud between rival gangs primarily dealing in coal, “the black diamond”, the Anurag Kashyap-directed duology attained recognition and demanding acclaim following its full-house premier on the 2012 Cannes Movie Competition in France.
With an ingenious solid, sharp dialogues, pitch-black comedy and gritty setting, the five-hour epic crime and political drama cemented its standing as one of the vital memorable Indian movies of the previous decade.
Nevertheless it isn’t simply Gangs of Wasseypur. Bollywood, India’s much-vaunted Hindi movie business based mostly in Mumbai, in addition to regional movie studios unfold internationally’s most populous nation, are witnessing an unprecedented surge in re-releases of movies celebrated up to now, some going way back to the Sixties.
Dozens of such movies have hit theatres in lots of cities this 12 months – excess of ever earlier than – because the nation’s almost $200bn movie business appears to be like to revive its fortunes after taking a number of hits lately.
In a rustic like India, which produces extra movies a 12 months than Hollywood, cinema is actually a mass medium, most loved at the hours of darkness and dreamy confines of a movie theatre exhibiting its newest providing on a 70mm display screen. However the coronavirus pandemic harm Indian movies – because it did with films globally. Since 2022, theatres internationally have been struggling to get folks again, a disaster compounded by the rise of on-line streaming and OTT platforms.
India reeled beneath two lethal COVID-19 waves in 2020 and 2021, forcing the closure of almost 1,500 to 2,000 theatres – a majority of them single-screen cinemas, which couldn’t stand as much as the company franchise-driven multiplexes principally seen in buying malls mushrooming throughout the nation.
Then there may be the rising value of creating a full-length movie. Stars, primarily males, are actually paid an unprecedented charge, some amounting to almost half of a movie’s price range. Furthermore, the expense of their entourage – make-up and publicity crew, self-importance vans, resorts and journey – places additional monetary pressure on producers and studios. Just lately, outstanding producer and director Karan Johar instructed journalists the star charges in Bollywood have been “not in contact with actuality”.
To make issues worse, Bollywood lately has been witness to a string of flops, with even large multiplex chains corresponding to PVR INOX incurring heavy losses – and subsequently pressured to be extra imaginative of their choices.
It was in opposition to such a backdrop that theatre homeowners and filmmakers determined to re-release outdated movies. Lots of movies which have returned to theatres have been runaway successes the primary time round, whereas others weren’t – till now.
PVR INOX’s lead strategist Niharika Bijli was quoted in a report in September this 12 months as saying the chain re-released a whopping 47 movies between April and August this 12 months. Whereas the common occupancy for a brand new launch throughout this era stood at 25 p.c, re-releases loved the next common of 31 p.c, in keeping with the reviews.
Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, whose 2002 hit Tum Bin was launched once more this 12 months to a lot fanfare, instructed Al Jazeera nostalgia has “a big function to play right here”.
“There are often two sorts of viewers getting in for the re-releases. The primary is the individuals who missed these movies in theatres. Perhaps they noticed it on OTT and felt like having a theatrical expertise of it. Or there’s individuals who have recollections, nostalgia connected to a movie, and need to revisit it,” he mentioned.
Indian movie commerce analyst Taran Adarsh agreed, saying the success of Tumbbad, a 113-minute mythological horror initially launched in 2018, was proof that the formulation of reruns was working. “It’s additionally about nostalgia, some folks may need to expertise the magic of a movie on the massive display screen once more,” he mentioned.
Tumbbad didn’t do effectively when it first got here out. However with rising recognition and demanding acclaim, the movie was re-released in September this 12 months and went on to carry out considerably higher than the 12 months it hit the massive display screen.
“When it re-released, Tumbbad truly collected over 125 p.c extra income in its opening weekend than it did again in 2018. Folks will watch issues if there may be word-of-mouth publicity and theatre homeowners and distributors know it. Superstars like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman [Khan] are coming again to theatres, because of Karan Arjun getting a re-release,” mentioned Adarsh, referring to the actors, who, regardless of being of their late 50s, proceed to be the highest two reigning stars in Bollywood.
First launched in 1995, Karan Arjun, a rebirth-themed motion drama directed by actor-turned-director Rakesh Roshan, is ready to hit Indian theatres on Friday to mark its thirtieth anniversary, with a model new trailer.
Kuch bandhan aise hote hai, jinke liye ek janam poora nahi hota! #KaranArjun re releasing in cinemas worldwide from Nov twenty second!@RakeshRoshan_N #RajeshRoshan @BeingSalmanKhan @itsKajolD #MamtaKulkarni #Rakhee #AmrishPuri @tipsofficial @PenMovies #30yearsOfKaranArjun pic.twitter.com/D7tih2QwMf
— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) November 13, 2024
Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, broadly considered one of many pioneers of India’s so-called artwork cinema motion of the Seventies, instructed Al Jazeera the choice to re-release such movies is taken by the producers. Just lately, Benegal himself noticed the restoration and re-release of his 1976 traditional, Manthan, India’s first crowdfunded movie for which greater than 500,000 farmers contributed two rupees every to inform the story of their motion that based Amul, India’s largest dairy cooperative.
“As a result of it’s an advanced and time-consuming course of, you solely select to revive these films that you just want to protect for lengthy. Fortuitously for us, it labored out effectively. The restoration was glorious and we bought a fantastic response from the audiences,” Benegal mentioned, including that the way in which a movie is made, and never simply its themes, contributes to its intergenerational attraction.
“A film may be very a lot a part of your personal time. A movie’s theme can get dated in a short time. If folks throughout generations are reacting to it, then it could be that its message appealed to them,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
And it’s not simply Bollywood – or Hindi cinema – that’s cashing in on nostalgia for the olden days and their films.
Mahanagar, the 1963 Bengali traditional by India’s most celebrated filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, was launched in theatres throughout India – to some spirited celebration by the followers of Ray, who in 1992 was awarded an honourary Oscar award for a lifetime of acclaimed work.
Down south, megastars corresponding to Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Chiranjeevi and Mohanlal additionally noticed their common hits making a comeback to the screens. Rajinikanth, 73 and Haasan, 70, are two of probably the most profitable actors in Tamil language cinema, having fun with a cult following.
Sri, who solely goes by one title, is a advertising and marketing skilled in Chennai, the capital of the southern Tamil Nadu state. She instructed Al Jazeera it was the lure of Rajinikanth that first prompted her curiosity within the re-releases round her.
“The primary time I heard about re-releases was when Rajinikanth’s Baashha was being screened once more. The film was initially launched in 1995 after I was an toddler, so I by no means bought round to watching it on the massive display screen though it’s a cult traditional. My older sisters have been influenced by nostalgia and needed to go, so I additionally joined them,” she mentioned.
Equally, Haasan’s Indian (1996) and Gunaa (1991) additionally hit the theatres this 12 months, as did Chiranjeevi’s Indra (2002) to rejoice his 69th birthday and Mohanlal’s Manichitrathazhu (1993).
Ajay Unnikrishnan, a journalist based mostly in Bengaluru, the capital of the southern Karnataka state, mentioned the development of re-releasing outdated classics additionally marks “a type of cultural resistance”, significantly in gentle of the poor efficiency of most Bollywood flicks in the present day.
“We simply noticed the discharge of the third sequel of Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a Hindi franchise, solely weeks after the re-release of Mohanlal’s Manichitrathazhu, the unique Malayalam film that Bhool Bhulaiyaa is predicated on. So I see this as a type of cultural resistance as a result of Manichitrathazhu is the unique. It’s so completely different, had extra creative worth. Bhool Bhulaiyaa appropriated it,” he mentioned.
Unnikrishnan mentioned reruns are usually not a rarity in southern India’s “superstar-driven” business. “Re-releases have all the time been there, it’s simply that persons are taking extra discover now as a result of in the present day there’s a dearth of films with common attraction,” he mentioned.
Consultants and movie commerce analysts agree.
Ira Bhaskar, former professor of cinema research at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru College, mentioned the present phenomenon is simply a repackaging of what has lengthy existed.
“Earlier than the period of multiplexes, movies have been actually re-screened fairly often. If there was a Hindi film popping out of Bombay [now Mumbai], it was fairly frequent to see that movie, say a 12 months later in a smaller metropolis or city like Varanasi,” Bhaskar instructed Al Jazeera.
Whereas Adarsh agreed that the present development is a “continuation of what we used to witness within the Seventies and Eighties”, he additionally pointed to an important distinction: the inflow of on-line streaming and other people switching from 70mm screens to smartphones, forcing theatres to compete with different viewing choices.
“However I don’t suppose there’s any competitors as a result of cinema is cinema,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
“The sensation of watching a film on an enormous display screen is so distinctive and easily can’t be matched. There’ll all the time be individuals who need that.”
