A new age dawning for Bollywood?

Box office king Rajkumar Hirani says film-makers are now looking outside the box to tell varied stories

MUMBAI: Bollywood box office king Rajkumar Hirani believes a new golden age is dawning for the Indian movie industry as film-makers look outside the box to tell more varied stories. "Before there was a belief that you had to have songs," said Hirani, the man behind a string of hits including the global sensation 3 Idiots. "Now people are completely experimenting with the subject matter."

Even those directors who continue to include songs are also exploring "much darker themes" and still enjoying massive box office success, he added. A case in point is 55-year-old Hirani's latest offering, Sanju, which the director has brought to this year's 23^rd Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, the largest of its kind in Asia.

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Based on the rise and fall of superstar Sanjay Dutt, Hirani admitted the project was a risk given the often grim nature of the story, which includes gritty scenes of drug taking and its lead character's descent into depression.

But the strong box office returns have convinced him that audiences want a wider range of options from Indian films. "It's very much a human interest story about battling your demons," stated Hirani. "It's a very different kind of film than I have done before. While I was making it everybody thought it was a mistake."

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But Hirani said he was more confident the film might succeed after seeing the reaction of Dutt, who was released from jail in 2016, at a preview screening. "He saw it three days before its release and I was watching him," mentioned Hirani. "He was crying and after that he sat at home and drank for three days, so I knew it had worked."

Experts say Bollywood is on track for record earnings in 2018, after surpassing last year's $2.1 billion mark by the end of the first quarter. Across all languages, India now produces more than 1,000 movies a year – several hundred more than come out of Hollywood.

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Increasingly these films are finding a global audience. Hirani's 3 Idiots – the tale of three friends struggling with the pressures of getting an education – was a ground-breaker in terms of international box office success, with around $30 million in international takings.

Hirani said Bollywood film-makers are expanding their own horizons as their audience grows, both domestically and globally. But he stressed he had found no magic wand for making great cinema.

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"I don't think there's ever a formula for success in film," said Hirani. "If there was, everyone would share it. I've been fortunate.  You can't judge what the world will like. If you laugh at the jokes you are writing and if you can cry at the emotional scenes, then hopefully the audience will too."

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