Bollywood’s Lack Of Accountability

Time was when independent and individual producers made films. If a film worked at the box-office, the producer himself and his entire team or unit could take the credit for it. Similarly, if the film bombed at the ticket windows, the blame lay squarely at their doorstep. However, a lot has changed now. With corporatisation, the decision to green-light a project is never an individual’s. Rather, it is a collective decision. Secondly, as against producers going by their gut feeling or hunch, those working in corporate production houses rely on projections and estimates made on long excel sheets on their fancy laptop computers before accepting or rejecting a film proposal.

That being so, accountability ought to be much more in today’s times than it ever was. For, corporates have made quite a science of the business of art that is filmmaking. But unfortunately, there seems to be almost nil accountability because if that were not the case, the same corporates would not keep repeating the same mistakes. If an individual producer made a flop and realised that his genre was wrong, he’d not try making a film in that genre again, unless he was very sure. Or, if he realised that the director was not the safest bet at the box-office, he would avoid him at all costs. But corporates have no hesitation in backing directors whose budgets spell disaster at the box-office or stars whose fees can indicate, to even a novice, that the films in which they act would more likely fail than work commercially. Obviously, therefore, there is no accountability.

And, frankly, to whom is someone supposed to be accountable? To the boss, the owner. To the producer in the case of a production house. In other words, the one who must make himself or his subordinates accountable has to be the one who is investing his money. Probably, because corporate houses are being run on public funds, the lack of accountability seems understandable even if not justifiable. Whose money, what goes?

Another reason why at least some corporate heads don’t make anyone accountable could be because they themselves aren’t equipped to assess film projects. And if the CEO or chairman is not able to understand what will and what won’t run at the ticket windows, how can he make his juniors accountable?

Those who are wonderstruck at the amount some of the corporates lose every year should understand that making money from hit films may be quite low down on their agenda list, so it may not really matter to them if their films (whether produced or distributed by them) don’t work at the turnstiles. On top of their priority list must probably be to make money from sources other than films. The ‘other sources’ could include their fat pay cheques, buying and selling their own company’s shares in the stock market, the manipulation of accounts and the like.

This, perhaps, may also be the reason why genuinely talented people in the film industry are often not welcome in some of the big corporate organisations in the film industry. People in the top-but-one-or-two rungs could get insecure of being overtaken in the race by knowledgeable persons if the latter get recruited in the organisations. As a result, such deserving candidates may never reach the head honcho of an organisation who might consider employing or retaining them – that is, if he himself is also not insecure!!

Coming back to the point of accountability, how can matters in the industry improve when there is as good as no accountability? If a film works, there are hundreds of people willing to take the credit, whether they deserve it or not. But if a film flops, the easiest escape route for everyone is:‘What can anyone say about public tastes?’ Or, ‘How can anybody predict the box-office fate of films?’

If nobody can predict what the public will like and not like, what are the long excel sheets doing on the laptop computers of those working in the corporate houses? Wouldn’t it be far better to then go by hunch, sixth sense, rudimentary market knowledge and the like? In that case, at least, no one can fool anyone else with technical jargon and impressive box-office numbers of estimated revenues which, more often than not, disappear the moment the film for which they were drawn appears in the theatres.

If the ratio of successes has not improved – rather, it has fallen – what is the sense of putting in so much effort on trying to scientifically assess a film’s worth? And if there is going to be no accountability, whither all the excel sheets?