Indian Movie AwardsAre they only for the Big Blockbusters?

Sahil Avi Kapoor | 20140121136

Abstract Year after year, a rash of Bollywood award function crop up from nowhere, each touted to be bigger, better, grander than the other. Although their motives, very evidently, are driven towards organizing a good, glittering show for the public and earn some advertising moolah, they model themselves on the mighty Oscars and promise to appreciate and reward the good work happening in Bolly-land. Alas, the difference between these shows and the Oscars or the BAFTAs are too stark to be ignored. While Hollywood celebrities throng the red carpets for the sheer respect and honour that the Oscars demand, celebrities here seem to attend these shows only if they are promised some sort of promotion for their upcoming films, a nomination or better still, an award. The loyalties of the award function organizers are quite obviously skewed towards big actors, and big, blockbuster movies that are handed over all the awards, regardless of the quality of their script, direction, acting or cinematography. How else would they manage to host big daddies of the mighty Indian film industry and promise high TV ratings to their sponsors? The day when Shah Rukh Khan agrees to attend an award show, and come onto the stage only to hand over the Best Actor Award to a Nawazuddin Siddiqui, is of course far away into the horizon. As is evident from the above rant, Ill proceed with this research paper with a hypothesis that Indian movie award functions are a farce and more often than not, most of the awards are strategically handed over to the big blockbusters that garner big moolah.The second part of my term paper questions the water tight mutually exclusive nature of the awardees of National Film awards and the commercial award functions. Why is it consistently seen that movies that win an array of awards at each of the award functions described above are never ever recipients of the Presidents awards for film and music? Is judging a good film thats deserving of a special award, really so subjective an issue that there is absolutely no concurrence in the two juries? Or is it that the National Awards are actually the only genuine authority left in the country that awards talent rather than money? Thus, this leads to my second hypothesis of whether movies that win National Awards are more often than not the ones that bomb at the Box Office.Summarizing the two major hypothesis:1. Only movies that do commercially well at the box office win most awards at industry sponsored award functions.2. Critically acclaimed films that are not very successful at the Box Office win most of the Presidents National Awards.As already mentioned in my previously submitted thought note, paper I seek to establish and bring to light any correlation between a movies box office performance and the awards it wins. I shall conduct my research for the period of 2005 2015 and shall cover three annual award functions, namely: Star Guild Awards, previously Apsara Awards IIFA Awards Filmfare Awards

The ResearchStarting from the year 2005, following are the awardees of the Best Film awards at the aforementioned award functions corresponding to their Box Office Collections.Star Guild Awards | Best FilmYearRecipientBox Office Collection of Movie (Domestic)Top Two Highest Grossing Movies of the Year (INR)

2006Black INR 22,50,00,000No Entry (43 Cr.) Bunty aur Babli (35.75 Cr.)

2008 Chak De IndiaINR 67,69,00,000Dhoom 2 (80.25 Cr.)Lage Raho Munnabhai (71 Cr.)

2009Taare Zameen ParINR 67,70,00,000Om Shanti Om (79.4 Cr.)Welcome (70.75 Cr.)

2010GhajiniINR 114,70,00,000Ghajini (117.7 Cr.)Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (86.8 Cr.)

2011DabanggINR 145,00,00,000Three Idiots (202.5 Cr.)Dabangg (145 Cr.)

2012ZNMDINR 90,00,00,000Bodyguard (148 Cr.)Ready (121 Cr.)

2013BarfiINR 111,00,00,000Ek Tha Tiger (197.45 Cr.)Dabangg 2 (159.2 Cr.)

2014Bhaag Milkha BhaagINR 109,30,00,000Dhoom 3 (282.4 Cr.)Krrish 3 (232.5 Cr.)

Going by the stats, four times out of eight, a movie earning above INR 100 crore in the domestic market, was given the Best Film Award by the jury at Star Guild Awards. Moreover apart from Black that was an Average financial success at the Box Office, according to industry definition Barfi and Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobaara were Super Hits, Chak De India, Taare Zameen Par were Blockbusters while Dabangg and Ghajini did record breaking business and were termed All Time Blockbusters.IIFA Awards | Best FilmYearRecipientBox Office Collection of Movie (Domestic)Top Two Highest Grossing Movies of the Year (INR)

2005Veer ZaaraINR 40,00,00,000Veer Zaara (40 Cr.)Main Hoon Naa (33 Cr.)

2006Black INR 22,50,00,000No Entry (43 Cr.) Bunty aur Babli (35.75 Cr.)

2007Rang De BasantiINR 50,00,00,000Dhoom 2 (80.25 Cr.)Lage Raho Munnabhai (71 Cr.)

2008 Chak De IndiaINR 67,70,00,000Om Shanti Om (79.4 Cr.)Welcome (70.75 Cr.)

2009Jodhaa AkbarINR 59,00,00,000Ghajini (117.7 Cr.)Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (86.8 Cr.)

2010Three IdiotsINR 202,50,00,000Three Idiots (202.5 Cr.)Dabangg (145 Cr.)

2011DabanggINR 145,00,00,000Three Idiots (202.5 Cr.)Dabangg (145 Cr.)

2012ZNMDINR 90,00,00,000Bodyguard (148 Cr.)Ready (121 Cr.)

2013BarfiINR 111,00,00,000Ek Tha Tiger (197.45 Cr.)Dabangg 2 (159.2 Cr.)

2014Bhaag Milkha BhaagINR 109,30,00,000Dhoom 3 (282.4 Cr.)Krrish 3 (232.5 Cr.)

The awardees at the IIFA werent much different from the ones at the Star Guild Awards. The few additions being Veer Zaara in 2005 that was a Super Hit of its time, Rang De Basanti in 2007 which was also a big commercial success, Three Idiots which was a record breaking All Time Blockbuster and lastly Jodhaa Akbar which performed reasonably well at the Box Office.Filmfare Awards | Best FilmYearRecipientBox Office Collection of Movie (Domestic)Top Two Highest Grossing Movies of the Year (INR)

2005Veer ZaaraINR 40,00,00,000Veer Zaara (40 Cr.)Main Hoon Naa (33 Cr.)

2006Black INR 22,50,00,000No Entry (43 Cr.) Bunty aur Babli (35.75 Cr.)

2007Rang De BasantiINR 50,00,00,000Dhoom 2 (80.25 Cr.)Lage Raho Munnabhai (71 Cr.)

2008 Taare Zameen ParINR 62,50,00,000Om Shanti Om (79.4 Cr.)Welcome (70.75 Cr.)

2009Jodhaa AkbarINR 59,00,00,000Ghajini (117.7 Cr.)Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (86.8 Cr.)

2010Three IdiotsINR 202,50,00,000Three Idiots (202.5 Cr.)Dabangg (145 Cr.)

2011DabanggINR 145,00,00,000Three Idiots (202.5 Cr.)Dabangg (145 Cr.)

2012ZNMDINR 90,00,00,000Bodyguard (148 Cr.)Ready (121 Cr.)

2013BarfiINR 111,00,00,000Ek Tha Tiger (197.45 Cr.)Dabangg 2 (159.2 Cr.)

2014Bhaag Milkha BhaagINR 109,30,00,000Dhoom 3 (282.4 Cr.)Krrish 3 (232.5 Cr.)

2015QueenINR 60,00,00,000PK (340 Cr.)Kick (230.4 Cr.)

There were no great inferences from the awards list for the Filmfare Awards as the list was only an exact reproduction of the IIFA awardees list. Coincidence, much?

The ObservationId proceed with a year on year observation of the Bollywood industry and try and relate it to the Best Film awardees listed above. To record the observations for the same, Ill be borrowing the IMDb ratings of Bollywood films in the 2005 2015 time period. The IMDb ratings are the most unbiased and robust movie ratings publically available, basis on a little research that I carried out to study their rating mechanism. The IMDb website doesnt allow any tampering of crowdsourced ratings by calculating a cleverly devised weighted average formula rather than one that takes a raw average. This reduces the possibility of organized vote stuffing (multiple votes to inflate or deflate rankings) by any party. The weighted average ensures that the website rates votes by serious movie critics and viewers higher than those who casually critique or rate with an intention of malice. This is done by a massive algorithm to track the users historical data through mining his/ her past surfing patterns. Thus, following are the year on year observations that shall help analyzing hypothesis mentioned in the report abstract.2004The year 2004 saw the release of more than two hundred mainstream Hindi movies. The three Top ranked movies were Black Friday (8.6), Swades (8.4) and Ab Tak Chhappan (8.0). IIFA as well as Stardust awarded their Best Film awards to Veer Zaara that was ranked fifth with a 7.9 rating. Black Friday, one of the top ranked Hindi language movies ever can be left out of this list as it wasnt released in India till 2008 due to its highly controversial nature. The movie was nominated for the Best Movie at the Star Screen Awards in 2008 for the Best Film but did not win the award, losing out to Chak De India. Well, you couldnt have expected better for a film that earned only INR 7 crore at the Box Office, right? So what if it was a nominee at the much acclaimed and prestigious Golden Leopard Awards for the Best Film? Swades, another lukewarm performer with a Box Office gross of INR 15 crore managed the Best Actor (Shah Rukh Khan) at the Filmfare but did not qualify the cutoff for being considered as the best movie of the year, maybe because the Veer Zaara, another SRK starrer grossed thrice as much money. Lets not even talk about Ab Tak Chhappan for more than obvious reasons.2005A year which saw more than one hundred fifty movies releasing, was a dismal one for Bollywood with none of the movies doing amazingly well at the Box Office. Black, the Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee starrer bagged all the Best Film awards across the board, and rightfully so, for it was also the highest rated Hindi movie on IMDb that year with a brilliant 8.3 rating. But it wasnt as if the award functions organizers suddenly shed their love for high grossers at the Box Office. The reason for Black winning awards being that the top grossers were genuinely pathetic movies with No Entry getting a 6.7 rating and Bunty aur Bubbly managing a 6.2. In fact, despite the horrendous ratings, Filmfare put No Entry as well as Bunty aur Bubbly up as nominations in the Best Film Award category. Both the films were nominated over and above cinematic marvels such as Iqbal (8.2), Water (7.8) and Sarkar (7.4).2006The year saw a little over one hundred and twenty movies being released from the Hindi film stable. Seeing Rang De Basanti as the winner of the Best Film award at both the IIFA as well as the Filmfare Awards does allow a serious film enthusiast a sigh of relief. But even this year doesnt allow me to not notice any bias or attraction of the Award Show hosts toward big money flicks. The fact of the matter is that Rang De Basanti, incidentally, was both the highest ranked movie of the year with an 8.5 rating as well as the best performer at the Box Office. Thus this one was a no brainer for any organizer, a dream come true - award the money or award the talent both meant the same this year. The blatant propaganda against reasonably earning, good movies was evident from the fact that Khosla Ka Ghosla (8.4), a movie that changed the very perception about Bollywood for so many cinema goers was not even spared a nomination for the Best Film It was in fact shadowed by movies like Don (7.2), Dhoom 2 (6.3), Krrish (6.3) and Kabhi Alvidaa Naa Kehna (6) that were way below its league when it came to quality cinema. Needless to say, Khosla ka Ghosla won the National Award for the Best Feature Film in Hindi the same year. 2007One hundred thirty Bollywood movies released in the year 2007. Taare Zameen Par with an 8.5 rating was the highest rated film of the year followed by Chak De India (8.4) and Jab We Met (8). Taare Zameen Par also managed to gather the Best Film award at all the three award functions in our consideration set. In fact, even Chak De India also won the Star Guild as well as the IIFA award for Best Film in the following editions of the functions. Out of all the years observed until now, 2007 was the one with the best picks for the Best Film awards. What really helped the case was that both Chak De as well as TZP were successes at the Box Office.2008The year saw one hundred twenty three movies releasing in the Hindi language. 2008 was dotted with some excellent movies, replete with amazing acting as well as impeccable direction. A Wednesday with an 8.5 rating was the second highest rated film on IMDb across all languages. The year also saw the release of movies such as Rock On!! (7.9), Dasvidaniya (7.9), Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (7.9), Mumbai Meri Jaan (7.9) and Aamir (7.8). But none of these movies were blockbusters when it came to box office collections, a movie as profound and incredible as A Wednesday garnering a measly INR 12 crore across the country. The movie did win the Best Director award at the Star Screen as well as the Filmfare, but the coveted Best Film award eluded it, only to be handed over to Jodhaa Akbar (7.6), maybe because it made close to five times as much?20092009 was a dream for the award function organizers, with 3 Idiots, the highest grosser as well as the highest rated film of the year had no competition from any other movies. Predictably, all awards were swept by the beautiful movie that was inspired by the Chetan Bhagat novel Five Point Someone!2010