2019 Wrap Up: The year that kept Bollywood cash registers ringing all through

Every year we see at least four to five films that do a staggering business at the box-office. However, the year 2019, was quite an amazing one for our filmmakers as around more than ten films did a whopping business of Rs. 200 crores plus worldwide gross! The statistics this year were so good that one point there was a debate on how can the country’s economy underperform when the films are raking in so much moolah?

For the unversed, though Bollywood films minted unprecedented amount at the ticket window this year, however, overall these collections don’t matter when it comes to the country’s economy. The reason being box-office success of films doesn’t contribute to the economy.

Talking about the relation between these two, film trade analyst Komal Nahta told India Today, “The film industry and Bollywood both contribute very minimal like minuscule level to the economy. One or two per cent maybe! The film industry is very glamorous their figures of business are always out in public, therefore, it is just an attraction. The film industry does not actually contribute a lot to the economy.” 

Interestingly the year 2019 witnessed the first-ever time when the film industry earned over Rs 120 crore in a single day! Now that’s a whopping sum. So the country’s economy might not be sound but our film industry is performing very well. And that is good news for our industry folks. Isn’t it?

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The films raking in the highest moolah this year were ‘War’, ‘Kabir Singh’, ‘Uri’, ‘Bharat’, ‘Mission Mangal’, ‘Housefull 4’, ‘Gully Boy’ and ‘Super 30’ to name a few. Looking at this list, we can say that this year, we saw all kind of films taking the centre stage. Mass-entertainers, social-drama, comedy, action-thrillers and biopics, historical dramas almost all the genres managed to increase the footfalls in the theatres.

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Also two of the biggest film of this year- Salman Khan’s ‘Dabangg 3’ and Akshay Kumar’s ‘Good Newwz’ are yet to release. So the graph of the money churned by Bollywood films this year is only going to witness an upward trend.

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Now only one major drawback about this list is that none of the women-oriented films were able to match up to the business of their other counterparts. And that is little heartbreaking as it shows how long women-centric films still have a long way to go in terms of proper presentation and promotions. Its not like we didn’t have some brilliant female driven films this year. Taapsee Pannu’s ‘Badla’ & ‘Saand Ki Aankhn’, Sonam Kapoor’s ‘Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga‘, Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Judgementall Hai Kya‘, and Rani Mukerji‘s ‘Mardaani 2’ were all loved by the audience and the critics alike, but that love didn’t reflect on this film’s box-office collections.

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Women empowerment, gender pay parity, and safe workplace environment were some of the issues that were widely discussed this year. However, if Bollywood produces more films( in comparison with Hollywood) per year, then the number of films highlighting these issues were abysmal. With, 2020 we hope to see a drastic change in this statistic as well.

Next year we have Salman Khan’s ‘Radhe’, Aamir Khan’s ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, Ranbir Kapoor’s ‘Brahmastra’ and Akshay Kumar’s ‘Laxmmi Bomb’ lined up, so naturally 2020 is going to be all the more grand and glorious. Now it has to be seen how these film’s performance will prove to be a game changer for the film industry.

Also Read: As filmmaker Shoojit Sircar calls out Bollywood’s duality, I second his views

Pooja Sharma

Cinephile. Bibliophile. Pluviophile. Selenophile. Autophile. Aesthete. Blood group- Tea positive. Poetry lover. Sucker of rom-coms.

PS: Sharmaji ki Ladki sucks at writing bios.
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