When Mallika Sherawat did her misplaced diva act and demanded a fee of Rs 1 crore from the very Bhatts who’d crafted Murder, her one and only blockbuster, Mahesh Bhatt simply showed her the door.
In the delusional belief that it was her audience-enticing power that had turned Murder into a hit, Mallika had turned audacious enough to ask producers Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt to pay her a big ‘C’ if they wanted her to act in Gangster. As Mahesh Bhatt put it ever so politely, “We didn’t think the price she was asking would make our project viable.” In other words, her name gave no value addition to the film.
Honestly, Mallika should’ve known better, for the Bhatts are perhaps the only producers who’ve successfully dispensed with the star system today. While the Bhatts and their team (including nephew Emraan Hashmi who will also be dropped if he turns starry), have gone on to deliver one success after the other, Sherawat’s films (Bachke Rehna Re Baba, Kis Kis Ki Kismet, Shaadi Se Pehle) have all been pathetic failures.
Mallika is, of course, small fry in the game as the Bhatt brothers have a clear and simple gameplan where quick, startling scripts and tight, under-Rs 4-crore budgets transcend the need for saleable stars. When Mallika got uppity, they simply moved on and picked up a completely unknown girl from Himachal Pradesh called Kangana Ranaut.
Fresh, slim and at ease before the camera, Kangana gave Gangster a refreshing newness that an overexposed Mallika would never have been able to impart to the film.
That’s precisely the strength of the Bhatts.
It’s fashionable today to laud Yashraj Films (turbo-driven by Aditya Chopra) as pathbreakers that make huge hits three to four times a year. Definitely, films that range from a zany Bunty Aur Babli to a stylish Salaam Namaste and an old-world Veer-Zaara with a Dhoom and Hum Tum in between have put the Yashraj banner in the forefront of Hindi cinema.
You can’t take away from the hardworking Aditya Chopra that his mind ticks 24/7 and under his umbrella a variety of films have been rolling out. However, in our haste to hail the obvious success of Yashraj, are we shortchanging the incredible mind of Mahesh Bhatt which has spawned an equally successful story?
Consider this: Murder, Zeher, Kalyug and Gangster have all been small-budget films that cost anywhere between Rs 2.5 and Rs 4 crore. Each brought in a profit that was double the cost of the film.
Importantly, all their films worked without stars. The Bhatt banner created Emraan Hashmi (who has quietly notched up more box-office successes than anybody else), they’ve made profits out of films starring unknown names like Smiley, Deepal Shaw, Kunal Khemu and Kangana. They’ve shot in places like Korea to get a different ambience and succeeded.
In contrast, a Yashraj film costs between Rs 9 crore and Rs 15 crore. Their profits (easily double the investment) are also huge. Except for Neal ‘N’ Nikki, they have unfailingly hit pay dirt.
However, Yashraj has always played safe. Manish Malhotra-Aki Narula wardrobes, loads of sophistication, good looking known faces, big budgets, and no newcomers. In fact they bend over backwards to sign up an Aamir Khan (who had fallen out with Yashraj during Darr which he rejected) because the casting coup of Aamir-Kajol is the sole USP of Fanaa. Imagine Fanaa with newcomers and you’ll realise Yashraj’s dependence on stars and packaging.
The Bhatts have the edge over the Chopras because they take risks, with their subjects, with their to-laugh-at budgets and their raw artistes. So why do we applaud only Yashraj’s success?
The reason is because we tend to get dazzled by packaging and exclusivity, even ‘reclusivity.’ Aditya Chopra is not accessible to anybody, his films are made like defence deals with great secrecy, his stars are instructed not to breathe a word about their films. The Bhatts are pleasantly approachable, they are quoted all over the place (Mahesh Bhatt even says, “Of course I plagiarise. But I admit it unlike others”), they’re open about their projects. And so we take them for granted.
Hey, psst!
*Did you know that Murder director Anurag Basu could never celebrate its success as he was diagnosed with blood cancer just before its release? It was complete positive thinking that he fought the disease and lived to direct Gangster.
*The new gimmick in Yashraj Films’ Dhoom 2 is whispered to be two top heroines, Aishwarya Rai and Bipasha Basu in swimsuits!
Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International
