Behind the Re-Releases: What's Really Happening in Hindi Cinema

Walk into a cinema hall these days and you might find yourself watching Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (a 1995 romantic classic that defined a generation of Hindi cinema viewers)—again. Not because you've stumbled into a time warp, but because re-releases have become Bollywood's safety net. So have sequels; familiar, nostalgic, and financially predictable.

Bollywood—the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai and one of the world’s largest film industries by output—has long been India’s cultural powerhouse.

For the better part of a century, Bollywood churned out dreams with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. Icons who could make crowds weep, soundtracks that became life's background score, stories that felt like they belonged to us. But somewhere along the way, the wheels seem to be shaky. The question is: what exactly happened and when?

The great unravelling

We spoke to three people in the industry, and all of them pointed the finger at the pandemic as the inflection point.

The lockdowns changed everything. People stopped visiting cinemas. OTT platforms - streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar - surged. Cinema habits transformed overnight—suddenly you could watch a great film from your sofa. For film industries, the pandemic meant budget cuts and recalibration.

According to film critic Rahul Desai, the pandemic upended "the entire model of film distribution, film exhibition, cinema in general." The lockdowns didn't just pause cinema—they democratised viewing habits, exposing audiences to different film universes. "Hindi moviegoers realised that there's a world outside of Bombay cinema," Desai says, and suddenly the yardstick was higher.

But Mohit Sukhija, who's worked across casting, editorial, and as an assistant director, argues that Bollywood isn't losing its edge. "The advent of OTT was a bit of a hit because filmmakers had to recalibrate what content should make it to theatres." For him, what looks like decline is merely an industry recalibrating after a perfect storm: OTT disruption, followed by COVID, now AI. "We're still recovering from COVID's impact, and this is not just Bollywood," he insists.

Mohit Sukhija on the sets of the movie 'Bloody Daddy'. Image credits - Anusha Kulal

The numbers tell the story. Mohit himself went from being an everyday theatre-goer pre-COVID to visiting maybe once or twice a month.

The formula problem

If there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's that Bollywood has become risk-averse to the point of paralysis. Nikita Gadal, a filmmaker who straddles indie and mainstream cinema, puts it plainly: "The risk appetite within the studio system is very low. Greenlighting often depends on precedent, on what's worked before."

It's not that brilliant scripts don't exist. "There are brilliant, daring scripts written every day," Nikita says. The problem is what happens when those scripts land on a producer's desk. They get "packaged"—meaning the right cast, director, or showrunner gets attached to make the project viable in the market. "Scripts go through rounds of adjustments," she explains. "Adding emotional beats, lightening tonal complexity, or inserting elements thought to widen audience appeal."

Mohit defends the formula from a different angle. "The tried and tested formula precedes any creative risk-taking ability because the risk also amounts to a lot of money," he notes. "Final decision-making is mostly always in the hands of the person who has put in the money." Fair enough—no one wants to lose crores on an experiment. But when everything becomes an experiment in not experimenting, you end up with the same film dressed in different costumes. Or sometimes sequels. As Mohit puts it, "Unless there's genuinely a story to tell, one shouldn't be making a sequel just because the previous part was a massive hit."

Does nepotism have a role to play here?

In Bollywood, nepotism isn’t just an industry critique—it’s a public obsession, routinely debated on prime-time television and social media.

The nepotism debate has been done to death, but it refuses to die because the problem refuses to budge. "It is, unfortunately, largely a closed shop," Mohit admits candidly. And it's not just star kids anymore—social media influencers with large followings are now being cast based on their Instagram metrics rather than their acting chops.

He recalls his own experience: landing an acting role in 2014 only to lose it to "the flavour of the season." But he's also pragmatic about it. "Getting a star kid or someone the audience is already familiar with guarantees more eyeballs," he says. "One thing is for sure though—they won't survive very long if they have no talent. The audience is unforgiving these days."

"Connections matter," Nikita acknowledges, "but not in the simplistic, cynical way they're often portrayed. Film is a collaborative art form where trust and credibility are everything." The problem, she argues, is that in India's informal systems, "access is often uneven." Still, she's cautiously optimistic: "What's changing now is that social media and incubators are slowly democratising entry points."

The South Indian question

"Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu cinema have doubled down on authenticity. They draw from their own language, folklore, and social milieu rather than imitating Western or Bollywood tropes," Nikita points out.

She cites Kantara (in the photo - ₹16-20 crore budget, ₹400 crore worldwide earnings) and Manjummel Boys (₹20 crore budget, ₹230 crore globally) as examples of films that balanced cultural specificity with universal emotion whilst maintaining craft without inflating budgets.

India is home to several powerful regional film industries, including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada cinema, collectively referred to as “South Indian cinema.”

"In many southern industries, directors often enjoy more creative autonomy, and writers are treated as central collaborators rather than replaceable creatives," she adds. "The result is cinema that feels confident in its identity, not curated for algorithms or trends."

Mohit, however, pushes back. "The regional films that we hear of are the big blockbusters. But there are also regional films that are being made in the country, which come and go without a trace." The perception, he argues, is skewed because we only see South Indian hits in big cities.

What's keeping Bollywood alive?

If Bollywood is on life support, someone forgot to unplug the machine. Films are still being made and stars are still being paid. Theatres haven’t shuttered entirely.

"Everyone wants to survive," Desai says simply. "The fact that everyone wants to survive on their own terms, that's how movies are still getting made." It's not pretty, and it's not unified, but it's functioning.

Nikita sees green shoots in unexpected places. "Despite the slowdown, Bollywood is far from creatively bankrupt. There's an overabundance of talent—writers, actors, cinematographers, editors—waiting for the right infrastructure to catch up." She's encouraged by conversations around fair pay, safety protocols, and ethical production practices. "The next generation of crew is less tolerant of hierarchies that used to be accepted as 'part of the system.'"

So, what needs to change?

Nikita has a three-point plan: make the ecosystem equitable, value writers financially, and dismantle celebrity culture. "Star worship has distorted creative decision-making," she argues. "If we shift focus back to stories and craft, we'll rediscover the collective magic."

Desai points to structural change. "It's a change of culture that has to stem from the top," he says. But the top studios, platforms, and producers are too busy protecting themselves. "Everyone's extra sensitive about being called out on social media, everyone's extra sensitive about protests and being trolled. You need a thicker skin than that to be an artist."

Mohit rejects the premise of crisis altogether. "I think what we're going through is a patch. A small road bump." He points to small and medium-sized films doing well recently as evidence things are already improving.

Perhaps the truth is somewhere in this messy middle. Bollywood isn't collapsing, but it isn't thriving either.

But here’s the thing. Bollywood runs on the fuel of passion, and there is no shortage of that. Nikita, Mohit and Rahul want to be a part of this industry very much.

Perhaps that's Bollywood's real staying power: not the stars or the songs or the box office numbers, but the stubborn refusal of people like these to give up on it. They've seen the rot, named it, and chosen to stay anyway.

The intermission continues. The lights haven't come up. But the audience and the artists are still in their seats, waiting to see what happens next.

-Asia Media Centre