New Delhi, Aug 25 - Energetic openings to Bollywood's four recent releases, 'New York', 'Kambakkht Ishq', 'Love Aaj Kal' and 'Kaminey', have succeeded in getting the business perk up. Wounded by a long strike earlier this year, the film industry is perhaps on a self-healing path now, say trade pundits.
The two-month-long stand-off between the producers-distributors and multiplex owners over revenue sharing, which was resolved June 5, led to a whopping Rs.300 crore (Rs.3 billion) loss to the Hindi film industry.
The dry spell was broken by Kabir Khan's 'New York' that released June 26 followed by the other three films -- 'Kambakkht Ishq' that came July 3, 'Love Aaj Kal' July 31 and 'Kaminey' Aug 14 -- raking in a net profit close to almost half the losses so far this year.
'These four films will do a net business of Rs.150 crore (Rs.1.5 billion) put together,' revealed an industry insider.
Said trade analyst Taran Adarsh: 'The industry is definitely on a recovery path... it is getting better now, but we do need a big number of hits to follow as even an A-list movie like 'Luck' bombed.
'Every movie has a luck of its own. For example, a small-budget film like 'A Wednesday' had a moderate release last year but proved to be a dark horse. At the end of the day it's the content that will win.'
Film critic Omar Qureshi had something similar to say.
'The industry is healing. Everyone was deprived of movies. There was a desperation to watch films and the audiences couldn't handle it.