This year, the all-important week of Diwali has been a total disaster at the Box office.

Diwali is considered to be a very important week at the Box office. Since, people usually take a break at this point of the year and are in a festive mood, releases at the time of Diwali, which also includes Bhaiya Duj, go houseful. Hoping that releases at this point of time will pull huge crowds at the Box office and will do extremely good business, producers, who have made big budget films with superstars as their star cast, book Diwali week as the time for the release of their movies. Thus whether you like it or not, if your film is releasing in Diwali week, that by itself makes the movie big and increases expectations from it.

And why shouldn’t you have expectation from this week, when on looking back you find that this particular week has given you films like Hum Apke Hain Kaun Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge  and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

Expectations from Diwali week were equally high this year with three big films All The Best, Blue and Main Aur Mrs Khanna with stars like Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn Fardeen Khan, Bipasha Basu, Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutt, Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor hitting the theatres. Not only the Bollywoood movie freaks but even analysts were having a close look as to who takes the lead in the three cornered contest.

But unfortunately, there is nothing much to talk about the three films since if you have watched these movies, you would have known it by now that all three movies released this Diwali have just failed to live up to people’s expectations.

Still if you want to know for records sake, Blue opened to 50-60% opening, All The Best has opened to 60-70% opening, while Main  Aur Mrs. Khanna opened to just 25-30% opening.

Surprisingly, out of the three, All The Best, the movie that is doing maximum business wasn’t even planned as a Diwali release. It was just co-incidental that Ajay Devgn’s movie got released in the Diwali week.

Well, looking at the disastrous performance of the films released this Diwali, it seems as if when the history of hit releases at the occasion of Diwali is put together, year 2009 will go as blank or unrepresented. 

As both the wiliness and the ability to experiment increases in Bollywood, the producers are not only looking at new subjects but also new audience to watch their movies. Whereas some producers are making movies like Masti, Shaadi No 1 and Kya Cool Hai Hum, which despite being featured as family entertainers, have some adult content inherited in them, others are making movies which focus purely on children as their target audience.

Though children have always been a part of Hindi film stories, films made specially to entertain kids is a recent trend. What is probably encouraging the producers even more is the fact that movies for kids provide you with ample of scope to experiment and try new things until sooner or later you come up with something that pays you rich dividends.

The trend seen around the world indicates that a good movie, is a good movie irrespective of who the target audience is. That is evident from the fact that Harry Potter, Batman and Spiderman movies, though being made mainly for children are watched and loved by adults across age group. It is this particular trend that has caught up in India also and has seen animated films like Hanuman, Bal Ganesh, My friend Ganesha, Ghatothkach do extremely well with Indian cinema goers despite they being labeled as Children films.

In India, on the other hand, films which made for larger audiences but have children as key characters have had an impressive run at the box office in the recent times. Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Bhootnath, and Taare Zameen Par are some examples of films, which were not exactly meant for child audiences but did equally well among both kids and adults alike because their content suited all kind of people.

As some trade analysts and film historians see it to be, it is a misconception that films for children don’t work in India. If the content of the film is good it is bound to be liked by one and all irrespective of the fact whether it is a children film or any other sort of a film.

Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Bhootnath, and Taare Zameen Par are some other good children movies to have hit the cinema halls off-late. So, you haven’t watched these, just get the DVD and sit back and enjoy them with your kids. And the next time any kids movie is in town, do take out some time from your busy schedule to not only enjoy a light-hearted movie but spend some time with the family.

This is a nice post on how a Hollywood movie featuring an American Indian (Kal Penn) and American Korean is doing quite well at the box office in terms of making dollars. The author aptly says:

HOLLYWOOD TRENDS ARE BECOMING ….NEED I SAY….SLIGHTLY SOUTH ASIAN!!!

And honestly I don’t give a rat’s behind what the critics, etc, feel of the film, I don’t care, cause they don’t count. Business counts, ROI counts, and like it or not, success counts and Harold and Kumar are giving a very $$$ oriented statement, as opposed to an IT IS DIFFERENT statement, and the former statements are always heard loud and clear.

The author also throws insightful light on the changing Bollywood stereotypes:

Non Typical Bollywood films are now becoming very typical. Although the film was bad, the fact remains, that person who is setting up the Television department of SRK’s Red Chillies, is making films with Rahul Bose, Kay Kay Menon and Javed Jaffrey. Rajat Kapoor is coming as a leading guy (none of the side hero please , given that in most cases he anyway overpowers the hero) with Neha Dhupia. Big, bad and commercial Sanjay Gupta is planning to make Chitra Devakurni’s novels into films. AB is coming in movies directed by Leena Yadav (as opposed to the regular folks he works with). Allegedly folks such as Rajpal Yadav, Vinay, Ranvir are asking for and getting a crore….and more power to them for that…while I can’t pay them that…it feels good that they are getting their market dues and that due is not linked to you being a star bachcha or relative. The “old” school of RGV is still star obsessed, but there is a whole world of “old RGV sensibilities” that has sprung up and is boldly going where others feared. Add to this the alternative, but still commercially lucrative world of films that Rajat/Naseer/KayKay/Madhur/Bhavna, etc make……DRASTIC CHANGES ARE HAPPENING THERE TOO.