No, I have not seen Chashme Baddoor . Simply couldn’t bring myself to do it, not after Himmatwala . The excruciating pain of Sajid Khan’s travesty that goes by the name of cinema has not left me yet — it probably never will. Plus, I’ve had it up to here and beyond with remakes. Will somebody out there stop them, please!

Oh okay, there’s only one thing that can stop the remake machine — an audience boycott. We didn’t exactly see one for Himmatwala , but the collections have certainly made everyone in the business stop to think. Far from the Rs 100 crore it was expected to make in a jiffy, the movie has not managed even Rs 50 crore in its first week. This after Sajid Khan had predicted that it would be his (and Ajay Devgn’s) biggest hit and declared that he didn’t want critics to review — that is, trash — his film because the audience knew better. But it’s the audience that’s trashing his film now, with a string of Himmatwala jokes on twitter (sample: ‘Rahul Gandhi to visit the victims of #Himmatwala soon…’).

What gets me really angry is that, with three hits under his belt, and with a big star in hand, Sajid Khan was in a position to make a film on his own terms. Oh well, perhaps his terms were the ghastly 1980s, perhaps the studio indulged him and his nostalgia for that decade.

Piquantly, or perhaps fittingly, Himmatwala ’s chances at recovering its money (approximately Rs 80 crore including print and publicity) were dashed after just one week by yet another disastrous remake: Chashme Baddoor . This time around, the offering came from another purveyor of garish cinema masquerading as entertainment: David Dhawan.

Unlike Sajid Khan, David Dhawan has some films worth remembering in the 44 he has done. He is a director who once was capable of making a clean, genuinely funny film. But his last such was, in my view, Biwi No.1 , way back in 1999. His last hit was the bizarre Partner (2007) and his last film was the execrable Rascals (2011). What a record for a director who could have done so much more.

His last few films ( Rascals, Hook Ya Crook, Do Knot Disturb ) have been disasters and not surprisingly, he fell back on a remake, hoping that Bollywood’s new elixir of life would revive his dying career. The film has made money, but reviews have been harsh. And one more director seems set to fade not too gently into the shadows. It’s never a comfortable feeling, is it, to see a legendary director or star slide from an exalted height.

Dhawan does have at least one more film in hand, starring his son Varun, currently one of the hottest newcomers after his debut in Karan Johar’s Student Of The Year. That film could well be David Dhawan’s big chance and he’s obviously hoping that his son Varun will get him firmly back in business, just as so many other industry kids have done for their fathers.

When Raj Kapoor’s magnum opus Mera Naam Joker , a film very dear to his heart, bombed the director was in dire straits because the film had come after a long gap of about eight years after Sangam , had taken too long, gone over-budget and was too self-indulgent. He had to come up with a hit, and it was his son Rishi (and a delectable nymphet named Dimple Kapadia) who resuscitated him.

Ditto with Rakesh Roshan after the crash of Koyla in 1997. Three years later, he launched his irresistibly good-looking son Hrithik with Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai and life looked up. The instances keep rolling on… Salim and Salman Khan, Yash and Aditya Chopra, to name but two of the most famous.

But what of directors who have no good-looking sons or daughters to bail them out of trouble? After the mega flops of Saawariya and Guzaarish, Sanjay Leela Bhansali had few takers in Bollywood. Famously temperamental and extravagant, he found himself with no one ready to fund his next big idea. Ashutosh Gowariker is finding the going tough too, after What’s Your Rashee? and Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se flopped.

The latter film, in fact, clearly showed that he was already operating on a very tight budget. Never mind if he had Jodhaa Akbar, Swades and Lagaan before that. Never mind also that Bhansali had given the industry two mega hits in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas. Bitten and bitter, he produced a film as far removed from his sensibilities as possible: Rowdy Rathore. That cleaned up big-time. And he was able to launch his latest venture, Ram Leela, a film starring Ranveer Kapoor and Deepika Padukone.

Then there is Subhash Ghai, who once had some 14 hits in a row. He’s survived four consecutive flops, but no top-rung actor is ready to work with him. So his next, Kaanchi , will have newcomers with only a Rishi Kapoor for star value.

As the saying goes, one flop and the birthday bouquets stop pouring in; two flops mean people are already writing your epitaph in tinsel town. Films that have been announced suddenly go into cold storage, stars who have given their word start talking of date problems, producers get aggressive and start slashing already-sanctioned budgets for your next. If you’re a star, you will wake up one morning to have the papers tell you someone else has started work on that film your producer told you had been shelved.

Unlike other creative fields like writing, painting, singing or dancing, cinema requires money — pots of it. So, no money, no work — even for the biggest names in the biz. Only if they’re collecting by the crores can they hope to collect more. That’s cinema’s Catch-22: You get work (and money) only if you’ve got too much of it already. So we have to find it in our hearts to forgive them their trespasses — provided, like Sajid Khan, they don’t make too many of them.

> shashibaliga@gmail.com

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