2014 has seen a refreshing surge of movies with women as leads, which have rocked the box office, and this trend is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception. This trend started with the Kangana Ranaut starrer Queen, which raked Rs 98.8 crore on a production budget of Rs 12.5 crore, setting the cash registers ringing. With an author backed script and spectacular performances, the movie was hailed by critics and moviegoers alike. In fact, Queen has been a game changer in more ways than one. It not only proved that you do not need a colossal budget for a movie to succeed, but also that a well-known leading man is not a requisite to draw audiences in theatres. To draw a parallel, the much-awaited Salman Khan vehicle Jai Ho was released around the same period, but wasn’t quite the blockbuster everyone expected it to be.
Queen was followed by Imtiaz Ali’s Highway, which starred Alia Bhatt in an unconventional road movie. This comingof- age movie, made on a meagre budget of Rs 3 crore, grossed nearly Rs 5 crore at the Box Office. The success of the film lies in its inherent ability to connect with the audiences, rather than production value of the presence of a male star. By not spending a ton of money by casting a major leading man, the budget is kept low, and the risk of failure decreases significantly. This is a formula, which is being increasingly adopted across the tinsel town’s production houses. Even large production houses are shifting their focus to content-driven scripts with strong female characters, like the recent Yash Raj Films Rani Mukherjee starrer Mardaani, which grossed over Rs 35 crore in its lifetime, almost twice its budget.
Content-driven roles aside, there has been an emergence of strong female action stars in both Hollywood and Bollywood. With the success of The Hunger Game series (worldwide gross of $1.5 billion and counting), Jennifer Laurence has become the most bankable action star in the world, leaving behind her male counterparts like Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise, whose much anticipated movies, The Expendables 3 and Edge of Tomorrow could not make even half of the collections of the Hunger Games. Back in Bollywood, the Priyanka Chopra starrer Mary Kom, made on a budget of Rs 15 crore, pulled in over Rs 65 crore at the box office, making it a blockbuster hit. . Production houses are increasingly opting for female leads, which allows them to keep costs down, while giving them more scope for experimentation. Eventually, everything boils down to the movie’s date at the Box Office, and if this year has been any indication, the audience just can’t have enough of their favourite female stars.
By Neeraj Varty
