How 2017 Was A Mixed Year For Bollywood And How It Can Redeem Itself In 2018

The year 2017 was a mixed year for the Indian box-office and saw very few successful films. Audiences taste is changing and it was evident from the fact that a number of films with unusual and never seen before content faring well at the box office. Still, there were high hopes that 2017 would be a landmark year in terms of box-office collections after 2016 that saw the release of films like Dangal and Sultan.

Sadly, big star vehicles were ignored this year and small budgeted films came through. Not that there were no big-budget successes and films like Golmaal Again, Judwaa 2, Raees and Kaabil raked in a lot of money but still these big successes were scattered and were too few going by the number of big star vehicles that released this year.

Here are the reasons why 2017 was a mixed bag and how can Bollywood redeem itself in 2018:

Smart Audiences: The Indian audience is finally realizing that they hold the power to make any film hit or flop. This year, word of mouth worked the best for films like Lipstik Under My Burkha, Newton, Bareilly Ki Barfi etc. A number of films that would have gone unnoticed actually became hits thanks to the audiences choice and people didn't go to see an underwhelming big-star vehicle.

Content Rules: No matter if a film is full of a galaxy of stars or has unknown faces, it is bound to succeed if it clicks with the audiences. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha had 2 of the most popular faces in Bollywood and proved that if big stars also go for content, the audience is going to reward them. 

Ignoring Big Star Vehicles: Salman Khan experimented with Tubelight and failed, SRK tried his hands on something different in Jab Harry Met Sejal and failed and the multi starrer Baadshaho that was supposed to set the box-office on fire performed poorly at the box-office. Again, word of mouth played an important role here and the audiences helped their fellow audiences by telling them better watch a film like Newton or Shubh Mangal Savdhan.

Interesting Slate of films in 2018: Next year has a lot of interesting films up its sleeve. Every actor is coming up with an interesting film and is adapting to the changing tastes of the Indian audiences. Everyone knows they need to tell a different and powerful story or at least a story that clicks with the audiences. We are going to see thrillers, action-adventures, action-comedies, science-fiction and big-budgeted dramas apart from content-oriented small-budgeted films featuring known and unknown faces.

Actors challenging themselves: Alia Bhatt is doing Raazi with Meghna Gulzar, SRK is doing a dwarf film with Anand L Rai, Sushant Singh Rajput will play an astronaut in Chanda Mama Door Ke and Kangana Ranaut will be playing Queen of Jhansi. Gone are the days when actors could relax in their comfort zones and it will be interesting to see which effort audiences like the most.