The era of keeping franchise alive in Bollywood: Brings down the credibility of films!

Rarely we get to see that franchises, especially of successful movies and cult classics live up to viewers’ expectations. Expecting the same excitement as that of the original, a lot of people rush in to catch the sequel of the film, only to be left disappointed and thus bring down the credibility of films.

Bollywood’s love for film franchise is rapidly growing, as almost every B-town ‘A’ lister has a film franchise to their name. Even moviemakers are seen making more sequels, given the advantage that actor, as well as the maker, can bank on the success of the previous film and make more money with the sequel of the film franchise. A franchise comes with an already established fan-base among which the characters are already popular. So there are no many efforts needed to be put in by the actor in the sequels to connect with the audience.

But in reality, does franchise need to be kept alive in Bollywood? The trend of film franchises in Bollywood is on the rise in the past few years. While we cannot help but agree on how a few movies franchises are worth watching and worth being made, but there are some that turned out to be a complete disaster. Talking about the Housefull franchise, the first part received a good response from the viewers, but there was no need for the makers to drag it all the way to the fourth instalment. Even with Salman Khan’s Dabangg, the first part was a huge hit and he also won hearts with the sequel, but we don’t think that there was really a need for the second or now a third part. Even the Singham franchise- is just remake of the South films and films like Rock On 2, Force 2, Race 3, and more failed miserably at finding enough takers.

Also, it is assumed that everything in Bollywood has to be a version of a Hollywood relic. Even filmmakers say that the value of large-scale movie franchises has to do with the inspiration gained from Hollywood. But why do we need Hollywood to validate our existence? Sequels, remakes and franchises, which are adopted from the west, due to lack of original ideas, why do we need to treat their shortcomings as a fashion statement?

Some high budget franchises are also extremely low on direction and script which leaves viewers unimpressed, as the first instalment of the franchise is so good, and we are certain that the makers would get different ideas of the rest. But that doesn’t happen, and instead a complete rehash of the prequel is mostly seen which fails to recreate the magic and then realisations hits, ‘we weren’t really craving sequels.’