Thursday 28 August 2014

Can Bollywood Ever Catch Up With Hollywood?


You might have discussed if Bollywood movies are on par with the Hollywood movies at some point, but the fact is that the Hollywood movies have had a better track record in raking in the dollars as well as the audiences.

Agreed Bollywood movies are reaching various corners of the world where it hasn’t released a single movie before but still the numbers don’t stand pretty impressive to that of the Hollywood counterparts. So what are the major differences and why Hollywood has an upper hand, let’s find out:

1. The Film's Budget:
An integral part while making a movie is the financial backing provided to it. The films in Hollywood have a far bigger budget for their movies thanks to the wide range of audience it serves. Here in Bollywood the budget seem tiny as compared to the foreign movies. Take for example, the two most expensive movies from both the industries: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Ra.One made on a budget of $300 million and $27 million respectively. As it can be seen in these movies, the huge budget difference does affect the film and as it has been seen in most cases, the more costlier the film the better it is.

2. Movie Remakes:
Creating remakes is a part of production houses of both these industries but Bollywood rules the roost with countless remakes from Hollywood and many other film industries around the world. There are some original movies but a major chunk produced throughout the year are remakes with the recent trend being from the films of Southern industry. This has restricted the minds of production houses to copy only from various other movies. Some movies have even failed to create a proper remake, the recent one being Players which was a disaster as compared to the smash-hit 2003 film, The Italian Job. The most grieving part is that the movies which reflect originality are low-budget and though critically acclaimed fail to get the cash registers rolling due to the budget constraints and lack of star power.

3. Visual Effects:
Bollywood is far behind in the visual effects department to Hollywood. The visual treat that the Hollywood movies provide in terms of VFX and SFX are significantly impressive and are a delight to watch. The changes which the Hollywood industry makes in their technology are far greater than the ones happening in our movies. The recent efforts made in films Ra.One and Krrish 3 were pretty great but they aren’t even close to the VFX used in Avatar or the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

4. Audience:
English is the only language which is understood in a large number of regions thus leading to Bollywood movies trailing the pack. The films over here cater only to the Indian audience residing here and the people knowing the language abroad, which to be frank is not a large number.

5.Uniform And Over Spicy:
Bollywood is known to make ‘masala’ entertainers with all those song and dance sequences, emotional family sequences- with some secrets to be unveiled, a deeply in love couple that has to separate at various instances in most avoidable circumstances, the hero fighting a number of villains for his lady and many others. And believe it or not, you will find this in almost every Bollywood films. For the over spiciness part, action sequences have villains falling miles away at the kick of the hero, flying cars and over the top dialogues cover that part up which makes the Indian as well as the international audience uncomfortable.

Recently the work done in Bollywood is getting worldwide recognition in the world of cinema and this might help to overcome some of these shortcomings in the years to come but definitely it would be a difficult road for the largest film producer in the world.

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