Everyone wants to be a member but only the elite can join – and at a price. Now B’wood’s superstars need their films to net a billion rupees or face being an outsider, discovers Shiva Kumar Thekkepat.
It’s one of the few clubs where you cannot apply for membership, be nominated or elected. Instead, you just make it. Bollywood star Aamir Khan kicked it off with his hugely popular Ghajini, and today its membership list has swelled to include some of the top names in movies including the other two Khans – Shahrukh and Salman – Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Kareena Kapoor.
Wondering what it is? Welcome to Bollywood’s billion-rupee club, better known as the Rs100 crore club. Although not an actual organisation – it’s just a term used by the Indian film fraternity to separate the hugely financially successful stars from the rest – almost every actor vies to be listed as a member.
The entrance criterion is simple: you need to have starred in a film that has netted a billion rupees (Dh67,979,455) or more in India in 45 days or less. But there is one condition: the film must have earned that amount in net collections, not gross.
For those who came in late, gross collection is the total amount collected from cinemas across the country screening that film. Net collection is what the distributors have in hand after paying off the various government taxes. So what is this elite film club that seems to have become the new benchmark in Bollywood? Should a star have the billion-rupee credential to be considered a “bankable” lead? Is the billion-rupee film a product of Bollywood’s over-the-top PR machinery?
Tags: amir, Billion, Bollywood, Khan, Salman, shahrukh
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