It’s raining South remakes in Bollywood

Of late the sure shot formula for success in Bollywood seems to be remaking movies from the South. Several mega budget films like Ghajini, Wanted, Ready have done exceptionally well at the box office, compelling film makers to attempt more remakes. It is not just remakes but sequels too that rule the BO. Bheja Fry 2, Dabangg, Dhoom, Don, Golmaal, et al are also a point in case. While this seems to be working perfectly fine, one wonders whether it is so because of dearth of original scripts and ideas in the film industry here.

The few studios that are making money are clear that they only want money-spinner entertainers. A veteran producer says, “In our times, the concept of sequels hardly existed. This is a new age concept and more and more studios are showing interest. Today it is all about building a franchise and a brand name. While you make sequels which also manage to hit the bull’s eye, like a Golmaal, it is a win-win scene for both, the studio and the director.”

Trade analyst, Amod Mehra agrees this trend too like many others is something that Bollywood has copied from the West.

“Today money matters and when you already have a film that has worked with the audience, why think about an original idea? It is definitely so because we hardly have scriptwriters capable of writing good scripts. If a film has worked in South, then there are at least 50 per cent chances that it will work with the Hindi audience as well. Hence, the remakes.”

This could also be because the entire concept of writing original scripts has gone out of fashion. Almost all films are either inspired by incidents or borrowed from other sources and if nothing else plain copy of some world cinema.