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2017 Was The Year Of The Heroine In Bollywood, But Are Female-Led Films Profitable?

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In the coming Bollywood awards season, it’s going to be a hard-fought battle in the best actress category, with a wealth of meaty, female-driven stories. Some even had big stars such as Aamir Khan in Secret Superstar, Shahid Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan in Rangoon, and Akshay Kumar in Naam Shabana going to the sidelines. It's a telling indicator of a star-driven industry’s changing attitudes about women.

Unlike Hollywood, there is hardly any opportunities for women in Bollywood spy thriller, a genre that has traditionally been among the industry's most sexist. But this March, Tapsee Pannu in Naam Shabana changed the game. After her hard-hitting role in 2016 courtroom drama Pink, Pannu portrayed a fierce and emotion-free undercover agent in the espionage drama. The film, which grossed over $7.5 million, is a torchbearer of a promising, relatively new genre trend: the era of action movies starring women.

Another powerhouse female lead came from Kangana Ranaut in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Rangoon and Hansal Mehta’s Simran. Playing a fiery, whip-yielding Bollywood action star in Rangoon and a doughty bank robber in Simran, Ranaut gave both the characters a steely sweetness and a disarming vulnerability. Sadly, the films bombed -- failure of execution, not of concept -- but Ranaut walked away with praises for her crackling energy and propulsive drive.

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Wronged-mother-seeking-revenge was a recurring theme this year. After Raveena Tandon trudged the course in Maatr, Sridevi, with a screen persona equal parts sensual and imperious, came back as vindictive mother in Ravi Udyawar’s Mom after triumphing in English Vinglish in 2012. Interestingly, both the films reminded us the avenging angel dramas of the '80s where the badly battered and bruised woman literally rises from the ashes to teach her wrongdoers a lesson, which is satisfying to the audience because of the deeper, more cathartic feminist implications. Maatr derailed at the box office, but Mom performed well, grossing nearly $8 million.

Another peach of a performance came from Vidya Balan in period drama Begum Jaan, where she played a fearless madam in a brothel, who took a stand against the system during the tumultuous events of the 1947 partition of the British Indian Empire. In recently-released Tumhari Sulu, as a housewife whose relationship with her husband is jolted when she takes a radio jockey job, Balan attacked the character with the same forceful, take-no-prisoners attitude that she brought to Begum Jaan. In a career spanning 21 feature films, the actress has made a virtue of playing strong characters, but Begum Jaan was one of several big misses in 2017. Tumhari Sulu, on the other hand, costing $2.7 million to make, grossed $7.5 million.

Then there's Swara Bhaskar playing firecracker of a protagonist in Anaarkali of Aarah, Anushka Sharma as a friendly ghost in Phillauri, Sonakshi Sinha as an ambitious go-getter journalist in Noor and Shraddha Kapoor playing sister of underworld don in Haseena: The Queen of Mumbai. Though these films told refreshingly progressive narratives, with diverse and exciting characters, only Phillauri made a profit, earning nearly $8 million.

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Secret Superstar, a film about a small-town teenager with big dreams of becoming a singing sensation that also looks at the effects of domestic violence, and Alankrita Shrivastava's Lipstick Under Burkha, a drama exploring the sexual awakenings and personal struggles of four small-town Indian women, are also completely original properties, with strong, well-written female leads.

In one sense, all this seems like good news, as these films will go some way to improving the number of women in leading roles. But not all female-led films generated box office revenue this year. Except for Secret Superstar there hasn’t been a single woman-oriented film that has crossed $15 million mark this year.

In recent years, though, some female-driven films showed strong investment returns. It started with Balan’s The Dirty Picture ($18 million) in 2011 and Kahaani ($16 million) in 2012. Sridevi’s English Vinglish ($12.3 million) followed quick on the heels. 2014 proved to be a landmark year with Priyanka Chopra’s Mary Kom ($13.67 million) and Ranaut’s game changer Queen ($17 million). The following year Deepika Padukone's Piku ($22 million) surpassed Queen’s record. Last year, things picked up again with Pink ($17 million) and Neerja ($20 million).

A film, arguably, will get a big opening when it has a bankable heroine such as Padukone, Ranaut or Chopra, but after that the story and the filmmaking will have to step up to prove its merit. Storytellers matter, and therein lies another problem. When women write and direct fewer films, only one in 10 directors is a woman in Indian film industry, they're not being given the opportunity to help shape those narratives.

But having said that, Bollywood’s goal is the same as any other industry: to make money. If movies led by women are done well, audiences will respond, and Bollywood will continue to make such movies.