Every decade gets one breakthrough star which has potential to become the next superstar, some succeed, some turn out to be one film wonder.
From the era of Rajesh Khanna for whom the term "superstar" was coined we have seen many actors like Amitabh Bachchan with "Zanjeer", Kumar Gaurav with "Love Story", SRK with 'Raju Ban Gaya Gentelman" & "Deewana", Rahul Roy with "Aashiqui" and Hrithik with "Kaho Na Pyaar Hai" .
Only few have been able to maintain their initial success.
The word superstar today is being used loosely for anyone who have 2 -3 consecutively, but they are not true superstars.
Post Amitabh Bachchan era only SRK, Aaamir & Salman Khan can be called THEN superstar's. Out of these three only Aamir has been able to maintain his superstardom with kind of movies he is doing.
Since the pandemic in 2020, most of the stars have been losing their star power with minimal or to no releases. Even those who had OTT releases has fared terribly be it Akki with Laxmi, Salman with Radhe. If the ongoing pandemic prolongs year after year with different variants it won't take time for these big stars and superstars to be wiped out from the industry.
Firstly top actors like Khans, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan are already above 50 years of age (Mostly between 50 - 55). So they can't do college kids roles anymore, unless use of CGI.
They can't get into full on action movies due to age. They can use body double, but will be clearly noticeable like in the movie 'Radhe'.
Romance, but with whom ? The screen pairing will look like 'Father Daughter', Radhe pairing or Prem Ratan Dhan Payo are fine examples of it.
Either they need scripts like SLB's 'Black' , or likes of Hollywood level where Alpachino, Denzel, De Niro gets but in India who writes such scripts for older people ?
The threat now is not just upon these old superstars but even the new breed of actors who entered in 2010s and are today moderately successful like Ranveer, Ranbir, Ayushman, etc.
The OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime has already given good taste of world cinema to Indian audience. Even desi OTT platform like Sony Liv, Hot Star, Zee 5, etc are churning out some of the best web series where people don't care who the actor is as long as the story and performance is of top notch for e.g. SCAM 1992, Family Man, Asur, Patal Lok, etc.
People are now used to watch meaningful and entertaining movies, web series, etc. They are no longer entertained with Salman's hip thrusts, or SRK's open arms in Switzerland.
So there is huge threat now upon the Bollywood stars who are waiting for the lock down to get over and release their movies in theaters. If they don't switch to OTT platform, soon audience will forget them as most of them are just mediocre actors be it Salman or Ranveer, they aren't Nawaz or Pankaj Tripathi or Manoj Bajpai who are like Chameleon who can adapt to any kind of role and impress audience without any grand entry or flashy costumes.
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