CHINA has more or less said goodbye to the Hollywood comedy. Studies attribute it to the decline in the number of Hollywood comedies produced. Fox has cut comedies from 44% of releases in 2010 to just 8% for the Chinese audience. Hollywood humour is lost in translation. Hollywood does not much care. Chinese audiences are huge. Ticket prices are cheap there. So it provides a huge market. In the US, Americans visit theatres in fewer numbers as they are glued to TV and the internet. The superhero films are making it big with their simple themes and fast action which enthrall the Chinese audience. Average superman film profits are 52% while comedies rake in only 22%. Plastic dolls and video games make a strong appeal to the Chinese.
Indian cinema has a great advantage. Our macho heroes are all supermen. They can sing and dance, fight any number of opponents and steal the hearts of beautiful women. Every hero is an aam admi superman. Indian films have won a great many Japanese hearts as well. Indigenous cinema is gaining ground at home and abroad. Only the cineastes can miss the art films of the past. Gone are directors like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. Tollywood used to make commercial films of class. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee takes great interest in developing Tollywood. But can she elevate the quality of films produced? As for Hollywood films, the ban of 1971 has doused the enthusiasm of local people about classic foreign films starring Greta Garbo, Humphery Bogart and the like. The story is equally bleak in other states.
