Mere Superstars Aayenge..kab?

Ask the audience what makes the watch a film in a theatre and the most common answer you get is "Star cast". Yes, superstars ensure a good opening at the box office. But every few years, some existing superstars fade and a fresh set replaces them. Every superstar has his share of time on the silver screen, when his superstardom is at its peak. Dilip Kumar. Rajesh Khanna. Amitabh Bachchan. There is a definite, finite period for which they rule the marquee. Of course, their talent does not fade away, but the size of the audience that adores them dwindles over time.

While there could be multiple theories behind this transition, a key reason is that the movie going audience shows a churn every decade. So audiences who used to make a beeline in front of the theatres every Friday in the late 90s no longer visit them with the same frequency or passion. But their kids, nephews or nieces do.

Every time the film-going audience changes, their expectations from content change. So, the romance that worked in the 70s won't work in the 80s and so on. By implication, a romantic star of a decade may not be able to deliver to the expectations of romance one or two decades later. Same for comedy or action.

Let's look at our current superstars. The table below list the top 10 male stars in India based on their average popularity share from November 2010 to July 2012. (This data is collected through Stars India Loves, our star popularity ranking study conducted amongst 3,250 film viewers every month across 16 key theatrical markets).

The average age of our top 10 stars is 43 years. Even if we remove Amitabh Bachchan from this list, the average still remains 40 years. Only one star in the list is below 30 years in age (Ranbir Kapoor at 29 years).

In the next five years, the industry will face a problem as the top stars begin to fastart to fade away in the next five years. The Khans would be in their 50s, while Akshay Kumar & Ajay Devgn will be nearing 50. Hrithik Roshan and John Abraham will be in their mid-40s. Ranbir would lead the young pack, at a not-so-young age of 34 years.

We don't see too many young faces coming up fast enough to secure their positions in the top 10, even top 20. Ranbir has a maximum of two releases every year.Even newcomers like Ranveer Singh or Ayushmann Khuranna are being selective in their film choices. While this may allow them to deliver better quality, it doesn't exactly help in creating and strengthening their fanbase.

In sharp contrast, superstars had upto 4-5 releases in the 90s. They were constantly feedling their fanbase with a release every 3-4 months, in turn consolidating the fanbase and growing it all the time.

If superstars indeed fade away and equally strong replacements don't arrive in time, it can affect the box office directly. Out of the 52 weeks in a year, about 15 weeks have special holidays and festivals, turning them into big weekend opportunities at the box office, of the tune of Rs. 50cr or more for the first three days currently. But this will be possible only with superstar-led films. If the industry has to maintain the current momentum of 25% plus growth in business year-on-year, it needs a new breed of superstars to take over soon.

Of course, like every Hindi film climax, while the situation may look grim, I hope that the ending will be a happy one. Just the way Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan came out of nowhere and catapulted their way to superstardom, there will be new ones who will emerge soon. Hopefully, Mere Superstars Aayenge

Mumbai, March 16 (IANS) Bollywood director Zoya Akhtar believes that star power keeps the Hindi film industry alive."I think the star system works on a level. Apart from Hollywood, India and China no other film industry is surviving. We are surviving because we have our stars and our audience wants to watch our people. We would have been eaten up. Europe has been eaten up by Hollywood right now," the 39-year-old said here Thursday while speaking at a session at FICCI-FRAMES.

The 13th edition of FICCI FRAMES began Wednesday and ends Friday.

Stressing further upon the importance of stars, Zoya said while the critics loved her first film "Luck By Chance", the audience did not come to see it but "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" drew them in.

"The film ('Luck By Chance') got me every possible nomination. I won the best debut, all the critics loved it and they loved me. They actually pushed the film, which they don't really do. They wrote articles saying people should go and watch it. But people didn't go and watch it. That's where star power comes in. You have a Hrithik Roshan and a Katrina Kaif in your film and it equals bums on the seats," said Zoya.

Her last film "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" was not a hit just with the audiences, but critics too and the road movie about friendship and bonding won best Filmfare award too.