The alleged disagreements between Ranveer Singh and director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, over the casting of the other male lead in Padmavati, has brought into focus the rapid rise in solo starrers all over again. It’s also signalling the fall in the trend of multi-starrers in Bollywood.
Top heroes, at one point of time, would come together in various attractive permutations for movies. We had Amitabh Bachchan join forces with Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar in Sholay; Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan in the rebirth drama; Karan Arjun, Akshay Kumar and Salman in Mujhse Shaadi Karoge, and more. History is replete with such high-profile movies, which went on to be big names on the box office.
However, present day A-list actors, from including Aamir Khan to Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Varun Dhawan, and even newcomers like Harshvardhan Kapoor and Tiger Shroff want to star as solo leads.
A top-notch producer, who attempted to bring together two young A-listers for a buddy flick says it’s impossible to do so any more. “No two heroes are willing to work together. I think the last time two A-listers came together was for Ali Abbas Zafar’s Gunday, where Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh played buddies; that’s it. Even Varun Dhawan had such an awful experience doing Dilwale that he’s vowed to do only solo starrers,” he says.
Trade analyst Atul Mohan says, “The end of the era of multi-starrers has almost been like the death of a favourite formula. Where are today’s Bachchans, Khannas, Kapoors, Sinhas, Dharmendras and Jeetendras who used to come together for formula starrers Today, we only have a handful of such films, and that too with one big star and other supporting stars, who don’t have much draw as solo actors, such as the Housefull series. All the leading stars want to do solo films, as they think they have a huge draw independently, and sharing screen space would mean sharing the credit of success as well. But, just imagine the box-office collections of a film, if it manages to bring together any one of the Khans with Akshay, Hrithik, Ajay, etc. What would the box-office numbers be One should try, and you never know, this may restart the old, much-missed era of the multi-starrer.”
