Bollywood star Varun Dhawan has been in Bollywood for more than 12 years. Varun’s latest film ‘Baby John’, who debuted with ‘Student of the Year’ in 2012, is struggling hard in theatres. Varun’s film was released in theaters on the Christmas holiday and it fell on the last weekend of the year in which the public is in a fun mood and this time is considered good for masala films.
In such a situation, this film which brought explosive action and Varun Dhawan in a mass avatar for the first time could not earn even Rs 30 crore at the box office in 5 days. This failure of ‘Baby John’ has brought a big message for Bollywood. This message has been given to the public since the lockdown, but Hindi filmmakers seem adamant in not accepting it. However, ‘Baby John’, the official Hindi remake of Tamil film ‘Theri’, might prove to be a firm warning for the industry.
Public’s interest in remake ends
Before the lockdown, one of the surest formulas for delivering hit films in Bollywood was remakes. Bought the rights of a big hit from any South Indian industry or Hollywood and remade it in Hindi. If the film was good then it would have been successful. But the biggest role in this game was that of an invisible wall.
The film which was remade in Hindi from another language was seen less by the Hindi public. Like see the example of Shahid Kapoor’s superhit ‘Kabir Singh’. This was the Hindi remake of Vijay Deverakonda’s Telugu film ‘Arjun Reddy’. Most of the people had not seen this film in Hindi. Therefore, when this story was remade in Hindi with Shahid Kapoor under the title of ‘Kabir Singh’, the public showered tremendous love in the theatres. The popularity of OTT platforms during the lockdown provided a direct window to the public to watch films not only from South but from all over the world.
When Shahid of ‘Kabir Singh’ brought the Hindi remake of the Telugu film ‘Jersey’ with the name ‘Jersey’, the same problem came to the fore. The original Telugu film, Nani starrer ‘Jersey’ is on OTT due to its emotional story and family nature. It was seen a lot, be it South or North. The original film was released in theaters in 2019, released on OTT in 2020 and its Hindi remake was released in theaters in 2022.
Note, there is a gap of the same months between the release of the original film on OTT and the release of the remake in theatres, during which the Indian public has consumed content extensively on OTT. Shahid’s ‘Jersey’ remake came to theaters and flopped. People blamed Yash’s explosive film ‘KGF 2’. Like today people are citing ‘Pushpa 2’ as the reason behind ‘Baby John’ not working.
Actually, the industry took a long time to understand that now the public has started running away from the word ‘remake’. After the lockdown, big remakes like ‘Bachchan Pandey’, ‘Selfie’, ‘Tadap’, ‘Shehzada’, ‘Thank God’ and Vikram Veda had already flopped in theatres. But in 2024, the film ‘Sarfira’ starring a big star like Akshay Kumar again came out to test the mood of the public. This was a remake of Tamil star Suriya’s film which was released directly on OTT – Soorarai Pottru.
Making a remake of one of the most watched films on OTT during the lockdown was not going to prove beneficial by any logic. Because on OTT there is an option to watch the film in different languages ​​and its audience is not limited. The condition of ‘Sarfira’ was what was expected.
‘Adaptation’ not a remake
‘Baby John’ producer Atlee probably realized during the promotions of the film that the word ‘remake’ now drives the Hindi audience away from the film. So he started saying that this is not a remake of ‘Theri’ but an ‘adaptation’ and he has made some changes in the story. What he says is also true, there are some new things in the plot of ‘Baby John’ as compared to ‘Theri’, but these changes are not much. Still, the public did not give ‘Baby John’ a chance because the word remake had stuck with it from the very beginning. On top of that, the film was also made very poorly, the proof of which is all the reviews.
On top of that, the Hindi dubbed version of ‘Theri’ has been one of the continuously running films on TV’s Hindi film channels and its story has been memorized by the people. On Goldmine’s YouTube channel which shows Hindi dubbed films, the Hindi dubbed version of ‘Theri’ has more than 43 million views. In such a situation, making a Hindi remake of this film would hardly be wise.
Since the lockdown, most of the remakes made in Bollywood have flopped. The failure of ‘Sarfira’ in 2024 and now ‘Baby John’ might make the makers remember the mantra for 2025 that ‘remakes are not to be made.’