2017 Bollywood Box Office Was The Year Of Sequels Entering 100 Cr Club

Bollywood movies are incomplete without their sequels. The season is sequel is not new concept, but is there from ages. Mnay movies are the sequels of other Bollywood movies. Just like Sita- Gita was a sequel of some Bollywood movie, and its sequel was Chaalbaaz. The trend is followed from long back, and now it gain a lot of popularity and even has created craze in audience too.

As yet another sequel, Fukrey Returns, rings in big money at the box office and could also become the latest to join the Rs 100 crore club, you know that genre has almost become synonymous with ‘safe’ for the industry and is here to stay.

The year’s biggest hit is a sequel, Golmaal Again (300 cr approximately worldwide), and although this is not the first time sequels have dominated the year; because by comparison, 2013 saw 5 sequels in the top 10 (Dhoom 3, Krrish 3, Grand Masti, Race 2, Aashiqui 2); yet the manner in which 2017 has been dominated by a handful of sequels is indicative of a bigger change.

Besides Golmaal Again, Judwaa 2 and Jolly LLB 2 also made it to the top 10. There was also Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya that made over Rs 200 crore, Naam Shanana, too, made a killing (estimated Rs 56 crore on a supposed budget of just Rs 15 crore though it is a spin-off, not sequel), and now Fukrey Returns has already been labeled ‘unstoppable’ at the box office. The film has crossed the Rs 30 crore mark in just three days and with no major release this weekend, the film is bound to surpass all expectations.

The formulaic nature of Hindi films, where certain genres or themes such as the lost and found or the slice of life middle cinema of the late 1970s and 1980s, have seen an unsaid set of rules being followed in the bid to come up with a guaranteed hit. The entire south remake sub-industry that flourished across the 1980s not only made money for the producers but also established careers of many actors, writers, music directors, lyricists and even directors.

If one were to take out the south remakes that the likes of Sridevi, Jeetendra, Kader Khan, Jaya Pradha, Asrani, Aruna Irani, Jagdeep, Indivar and Bappi Lahiri were a part of in the 1980s, their filmography would shrink by a quarter. The lack of choice in terms of access to cinema from other parts of India or abroad also helped the advent of this parallel industry and ended up a creating a template that was replicated in an assembly line every time something ticked.

And the last sequel to be added in the list of 2017 will be "Tiger Zinda Hai", which is a sequel of "Ek Tha Tiger", starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif.