Bollywood is under immense pressure to make large profits. This compels producers to stick to safe, formulaic movies that will have a mass appeal. Well-known actors, musical pieces, and other plots tend to be more important than special artistic directions and serious storytelling, as economic stability becomes the top-prize.
It is hard to produce original content that critics and masses would enjoy. There is a real battle between truly innovative scripts and the same old same old box-office pull of remakes, sequels and formulas. It has often been the case that film-makers have to sacrifice their artistic vision in order to accommodate more acceptance by audiences as well as successful commercialization of their films.
This balance is seriously challenged by dominant star power. Movies are often sold on the name of the stars themselves, as opposed to the quality of the script and emergent talent. Tales are also regularly restructured to suit the familiar picture of an actor, limiting the means of narrative and true artistic discovery.
There are also censorship laws and fear about the reaction of the community that add restrictions to creativity. To avoid controversy or even banning, film-makers tend to avoid subjects that are too sensitive to discuss or even represent in a realistic fashion. This self- censorship would move content into safer less artistically ambitious grounds.
The pressure is aggravated by the emergence of streaming platforms. The audience has easy access to a wide range of quality contents. This compels Bollywood to either extremely increase artistic standard or resort even more heavily to the mass-market formula of a mindless spectacle to persuade the viewers back into the cinemas and the balancing act more difficult.
Conclusion:
The issue in the core of Bollywood is the need to remove the contradiction between artistic spirit and the necessity to get money. There is pressure on profits that leads to dependence on stars and formulae. The fear of censorship inhibits expressions. To keep up with the streaming competition, there is pressure to be of better quality or more spectacle. It takes guts to strike the right balance: to embrace good scripts, to develop new talent, and to trust that the audiences will like many different stories as well as commercial entertainment.
