The siege of Bollywood
THEY SAY that Bollywood is where India’s dreams are made. But at the moment it is not romantic reveries, fantasies of vengeance or snappy dance moves that preoccupy its film-makers. It is instead a dystopian nightmare, as two simultaneous epidemics threaten a century-old industry that produces more movies than its closest rivals, in China and America, put together.
One of these scourges is relatively new, and wreaking havoc in plain sight. For six months last year, covid-19 kept India’s 10,000 cinemas completely closed. The screens have since begun to open, but mostly at half-capacity and—because spooked producers have postponed their hoped-for blockbusters—showing only second-run fare. As a result ICRA, a credit-rating agency, anticipates that box-office revenue during the year to April will tumble by a crushing 80-85%. By last September these direct losses were already reckoned at $1.2bn; then there is the ripple effect along an entertainment-industry food chain that employs perhaps 300,000 people, as hundreds of productions were delayed or cancelled.
The other scourge is older and more subtle, though it seems suddenly to have grown more virulent. This is the chronic disease of interference, as various outsiders seek to bend, shape and influence Bollywood to their liking. Such creeping pressures take many forms...