Several high-profile star vehicles over the past few months—be it the two-part Dhurandhar franchise, Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal, Rajinikanth’s Coolie or the recently released Toxic—may have clocked impressive openings or lifetime box office collections, thanks to face value and wide publicity.
However, experts say that while such action movies—replete with violence and hyper-masculine lead characters—may appeal to mass-market audiences, their reach is limited by adult certification, which restricts family audiences in theatres and sale for satellite television. This means that the trope of aggressive, violent male protagonists is seen as a bankable strategy to draw currency, particularly among male viewers in small towns, although it comes with some inherent disadvantages.
At the same time, many trade experts believe it’s a feasible trade-off, given the box office collections. The two Dhurandhar films made about ₹2,000 crore in domestic earnings alone while Animal clocked over ₹550 crore.
“What it (adult certification) does affect is the family and group-viewing segment, since it removes younger audiences and multi-generational outings, which matter a great deal in tier-II and tier-III markets where weekend footfalls often lean on family viewing,” said Sameer Munshi, chief operating officer of Miraj Entertainment Ltd. “So, while opening weekends for these films tend to be strong on committed audience turnout, the revenue tail over subsequent weeks can be comparatively shorter without that broader base.”
There is a clear common thread in these films, according to Munshi. They are high-intensity, action-led stories built around morally complex heroes rather than the classic good-versus-evil template.
The core audience is typically male, broadly aged 18 to 35, and what draws them in is intensity and scale, big action set pieces, high production value and characters who are allowed to be flawed and conflicted rather than conventionally heroic.
Rewarding trade-off
However, while adult certification narrows the audience at the margins, it doesn't cap the upside.
“Dhurandhar: The Revenge topping the year's chart despite an A certificate is proof of that. It's a trade-off that studios seem willing to make for creative freedom, and so far, the box office has rewarded that choice,” Munshi said.
Kamal Gianchandani, CEO of PVR Pictures Ltd and president of the Multiplex Association of India, agreed that families and women stay away from such films. However, youngsters who enjoy gritty, engaging stories and well-told differentiated characters often make up for them.
“These films that fall into genres like revenge dramas cannot come with mediocre action or regular scale because the stakes, given the budget and cast, are quite high. So, they have to prove to be full-blown cinematic experiences and do something larger-than-life,” said film producer and distributor Yusuf Shaikh, also founder and chief executive of low-cost theatre chain Janta Cinema.
He added that a certain percentage of the audience is lost in the process, but the idea is that more of the young target group will come in large numbers to make up for it. Also, many of these movies are refurbished for television, with cuts and edits.
Experts say when a film in this space crosses the kind of numbers that Dhurandhar: The Revenge has, it signals to the industry that mature, high-intensity storytelling has a large and committed audience, not a niche one.
Beyond the template
That said, what they expect next is more variety within the space, different genres and settings exploring similar intensity and complexity, rather than just more of the same template. The recent underwhelming numbers following a big start for action film Toxic, which belongs to the same genre, point to the same.
According to film producer Anand Pandit, no film, regardless of its genre, is guaranteed to click. Whenever there is an excess of something, audiences crave for something else and this cycle has been going on forever.
Also, violence can be depicted creatively and need not always be graphic even though an adult rating by the Central Board of Film Certification is simply a way of communicating to the audience that the subject matter and tonality of a film is not suitable for children, he pointed out.
“The commercial success of mature action has shown producers that an A certificate need not automatically make a large-scale film unviable. However, hyper-masculinity itself is not a formula. Audiences still need character, conflict and spectacle; simply increasing violence or provocation will eventually produce diminishing returns,” said Rohit Dalmia, chairman and managing director of CineNow, an entertainment financing platform.