Grand Disasters

The flops that broke filmmakers and became the stuff of cautionary fable

A failed film comes with its own singular ache. Months and sometimes years of labour are blown away on a Friday morning. It’s an agonising crumbling of vision, reputation and finances. The label that Bollywood fears most is an eight-letter one: disaster.

That word was bandied about freely last week as the collections of  Abhishek Bachchan’s new film, Game, started trickling in. The film, a leaden and nonsensical whodunit shot across five countries, is reported to have recovered a little over Rs 4 crore in the first week on an investment rumoured upwards of Rs 40 crore. But even in failure, Game is a minor player. Bollywood history is littered with carcasses of flops like this. And then there are the iconic disasters: films so bloated that their collapse scars the industry. Here are some of the biggest:

Raj Kapoor described Mera Naam Joker as “the most difficult and  monumental film” of his career.  But Joker—4 hours and 15 minutes long with two intervals—flopped so badly that Raj Kapoor was forced to  mortgage his studio. Three years later, the teen blockbuster Bobby resurrected the RK banner, but Mera Naam Joker remained the film closest to Raj Kapoor’s heart. Years later, in an interview with Simi  Garewal, he described it as a child who failed, and so he had no option but to love it even more.

Five years after the blockbuster Sholay, Ramesh Sippy returned with Shaan, a James Bond style saga crammed with stars, high-tech gadgets and Shakaal, a villain who has his own island and throws his enemies to his pet sharks. Sholay was still running in theatres when Shaan  released. The film was taken off to accommodate Shaan, but the film, high on ambition and low on story, didn’t find many takers. It became a cautionary tale. So twenty years later, when Sooraj Barjatya was  embarking on a follow up to his mega-successful Maine Pyar Kiya, his legendary grandfather Tarachand Barjatya warned Sooraj to choose his  script carefully. Because, he said: “Sholay ke baad, Shaan hi banti hai.”

Kamal Amrohi’s last film was shot over four years, and its budget ran into several crore. Hema Malini, who played the title role of the only female Sultan of Delhi, said later that the film featured the  biggest and most elaborate sets of her career, including a Gulabi Mahal or garden where the ruler took her walks.  The trouble was that barely anyone understood the Urdu dialogue —I still recall  people wondering why the film didn’t have sub-titles – and even fewer found the romance between Razia and her Abyssinian slave Jamal, played by Dharamendra in blackface, palatable. In other words: disaster.

RKRCKR had a troubled gestation. Shekhar Kapur was originally slated to direct the film, which had Anupam Kher playing the arch-villain Jugran, who wears a shocking white wig and a flowing black cape.  Kapur left citing creative differences and was replaced by Satish  Kaushik. With a budget of Rs 9 crore plus, RKRCKR was India’s most expensive film at the time. It was also the first film to have merchandising. Of course, none of this eventually mattered—the film imploded on day one, hobbling producer Boney Kapoor.

Saawariya was Hollywood’s first foray into Bollywood. It had  everything going for it: two pedigreed debutants (Ranbir Kapoor and  Sonam Kapoor), a director hailed as a genius (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) and a studio (Sony Pictures Entertainment) eager to establish a footprint. What it didn’t was a script. Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s White Nights, the film was a mash-up of a blue palate and unrelenting boredom. It didn’t help that Saawariya was pitched against Om Shanti Om, starring one of Bollywood’s most canny and competitive heroes: Shah Rukh Khan. Shah Rukh pitched it as a  battle between the local David and the global Goliath and vowed to “destroy the competition”. Sony hasn’t produced an A-list Bollywood film since.

About The Author

Anupama Chopra