Asin Thottumkal is on the cover of Vogue India this month. The Malayalee actress, who has already made a big name in Kollywood, is making her Hindi film debut opposite Aamir Khan in Ghajini, a remake of the Tamil thriller (of the same name) and slated for a November release. For Yash Raj Films? Aditya Chopra?s new film after eight years, he has picked newcomer Anushka Sharma to star with Shah Rukh Khan. It is clearly a new trend in the industry, say analysts, and the reasons are many for Bollywood experimenting with fresh faces.
As it turns out, there are a host of newcomers knocking on Bollywood?s doors and many are getting a look-in because everyone in the industry?from directors to producers?is willing to try out something different to bring people to multiplexes.
?The sheer number of films that are being produced is helping producers and directors launch new faces,? explains one insider.
?Also, there?s the cost factor. With actors hiking up prices, it often makes sense to try out a new face for a film, especially the small budget ones,? says another. Then, say analysts, corporate funding, too, has given a new lease of life to the industry as more production houses are signing on new faces for out-of-the-box films.
Take UTV Spotboy?s Aamir. Directed by debutant director Rajkumar Gupta, who assisted Anurag Kashyap in Black Friday, it tells the story of an ordinary man?played by television?s favourite hero Rajeev Khandelwal?caught in extraordinary circumstances.
Aamir has fared well at the box-office, thus assuring producers in the industry that films with relatively unknown faces do work if the content is good. Says Khandelwal: ?There are dramatic changes in the industry. People are willing to experiment and make films with lesser-known stars.?
From debutant actors and directors to unconventional story lines and inventive camera work, Hindi cinema has undergone a revolution over the past few years. Says director Anurag Kashyap: ?Over 80% of the film makers in Bollywood still prefer to go safe with conventional scripts.? However, he is quick to point out that the Indian film industry has certainly come of age and is now more open to experimenting with unusual subjects and casting new directors as well as actors.
Not all newcomers are lucky, of course. While new actors like Imraan Khan, Harman Baweja and Sonal Chauhan of Jannat fame managed to make considerable noise at the box office, celebrity sons Mimoh Chakraverty and Sikander Kher were quite a washout. According to a trade analyst, this year the stakes for newcomers are really high as a sum of nearly Rs 500 crore is banked on newcomers in Bollywood. The reason that most production houses are willing to give newcomers a chance to display their skills on screen is because the success of a movie is no longer dependent only on box-office collections. There are various avenues of diminishing the risks for a film by selling the rights for television, home video as well as overseas distribution.
For director Tanuja Chandra, newcomers bring a certain level of freshness to the film and have no larger-than-life aura around them.
?That is where the audience finds a connection with the actor which makes the film more real,? she adds. Chandra also feels that the availability of a debutant actor is much easier than that of an established film star. ?There are fewer hassles about the availability of dates and the actors are more dedicated since it is like a make or break situation for them,? she explains. Most newcomers are also signed for lead roles as they demand much lesser remuneration than their more established and popular counterparts.
Says Rahul Merchant, assistant vice-president, business development, P9 Integrated: ?Although it is easier on the pocket to cast newcomers for a film, the challenge to market films starring a newcomer is much more than marketing a film with an established actor.? There are both commercial and financial risks that any filmmaker has to bear in mind before casting a new actor. ?Branding for a film has to be done in the right manner, failing which the film will find it difficult to sustain shows at a multiplex, find distributors and also have problems selling the satellite rights,? he says.
Recently, the box office witnessed intense competition when two films?Love Story 2050 and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na?were slated for release on the same day as a result of which both the films had been promoted aggressively.
The Harman Baweja-starrer Love Story 2050 was made on a budget of about Rs 50 crore. The producers set aside Rs 5 crore for marketing but most of the film?s costs were recovered even before the release through various co-branding associations, merchandising, satellite rights, music and overseas rights that were sold before the movie released.
Hiren Gada, director Shemaroo Entertainment, says ?This whole trend of casting newcomers for a film has become more feasible as there are various avenues for revenue generation in the film industry. With corporate companies pumping money into Bollywood, filmmakers are experimenting more with new talent.? Gada points at how Imraan Khan was extensively promoted, maybe even more than his film. ?This strategy was helpful as the essential amount of buzz that was created around the actor worked constructively to draw audiences to the theatres,? he adds.
Says Merchant: ?Bheja Fry which had a new director was made on a shoe-string budget of Rs 2 crore but because of a smartly packaged marketing campaign, the film managed to rake in Rs 8 crore at the box office.? Similarly, the marketing budget for a film like Loins of Punjab, which had an entirely new star cast, was greater than the production costs of the film.
There are also various celebrity management companies these days that are solely responsible for publicising and promoting an actor and most actors feel that these companies add the much needed thrust to an actor?s career. An industry expert reveals that Tips acted as an artist management company for actor Shahid Kapur when they launched him in his debut film Ishq Vishq and they promoted Kapur much more than the film. This helped in creating the initial buzz about the actor that in turn attracted a sizeable number of footfalls to multiplexes.
Producer Ramesh Taurani of Tips Films feels that if films starring newcomers do not do well at the box office, the main reason behind the failure is the lack of proper marketing and promotion conceptualised around the actor. ?A few years ago, the ideal budget for marketing a film was about Rs 50 lakh. It was often considered as an ancillary expenditure and most film makers viewed marketing spends as bad debt,? explains Taurani.
But will the industry back these newcomers after the initial launch? ?That depends on a variety of factors, like saleability, costs, talent and so forth,? says an insider. As actor Rani Mukherjee commented at a press meet: ?This year many promising actors have made their debut in Bollywood but an actor?s success is determined by his or her career graph and not just the debut film. The initial impact is definitely important but a single film cannot make or break anyone?s career.? After all, anyone who is a well-known actor today was merely a debutante at one point of time.