By Hindustan Times
It only admits stars whose films have made the most important bucks. So who’s in?
Aamir Khan was the primary member of this club in 2008. Salman Khan gained entry two years later. And though Shah Rukh Khan can’t see eye to eye with Salman and is hardly best friends with Aamir, he hoped he’d be inducted too. His hopes turned to reality last year, making membership probably considered one of his biggest Diwali gifts, ever.
Ajay Devgn needed the support of a few co-stars to realize entry to this club in 2010. But once in, it only took a year for him to prove that he could well have done it solo. Hrithik Roshan was admitted to the club only this year. And though he has tried several times, Akshay Kumar was denied entry. He finally got inducted only in April this year.
Just what's this club? Where is it located? Why is it the apple of each star’s eye? Who're the opposite members and what does the club do?
Welcome to the 100-crore club! It’s not a real organisation, but a term utilized by the film industry to segregate the more successful stars from the remainder: only those actors whose films net Rs. 100 crore or more in India are approved for membership.
It’s cool, it’s coveted, it’s for the crème de la crème. And it’s the most recent status symbol in Bollywood!
Who’s who
Getting into the 100-crore club isn't so simple as being in a film that has rung up Rs. 100 crore. To be considered for entry, a movie will need to have made that big amount in net collections, not gross.
For the uninitiated, gross number of a movie is the sum total of the cash that's collected in any respect the ticket counters of cinemas around the country screening that film. Net collection is what remains within the film industry’s hands after paying off the entertainment tax to different state governments.
Membership can’t come at the strength of a film’s overseas success either. Otherwise Shah Rukh Khan would’ve been the club’s founder member. Since Ghajini (2008) was the primary film to net greater than Rs. 100 crore on Indian soil, Aamir Khan has gone down in Bollywood history because the inaugural inductee of the club.
At the time, Aamir would hardly was acutely aware of what he started or known that he’d just broken into an exclusive echelon that might become the measure of a star’s box-office appeal within the months and years yet to come. His film 3 Idiots (2009) actually crossed the Rs. 200 crore mark, but when there still isn’t a Rs. 200 crore club, it's because no film has come with reference to netting that quantity since!
All figures are net collections
Apart from Aamir, the 100-crore club has only five other members: Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn, Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar.
* Salman Khan gained entry in 2010 with Dabangg (Rs 143 crore) and consolidated his position with not one but two blockbusters the next year. Both Ready and Bodyguard crossed the Rs. 100-crore mark with net collections of Rs. 122 crore and Rs. 145 crore respectively, making Salman the top scoring Khan at the 100-crore scale.
*Had Shah Rukh Khan’s My Name Is Khan (February 2010) been as successful in India because it was at the overseas circuit, he would’ve been the second one member of the club. But because it didn't collect Rs. 100 crore in India, he needed to look forward to almost two years till his Ra.One released within the Diwali of October 2011.
Director Shirish Kunder will have tweeted about how he “heard a 150-crore firework fizzle” on the time, however the fact is that Ra.One gave its hero-producer, Shah Rukh, credibility within the type of the club membership by collecting Rs. 5 crore – and naturally an enormous windfall (revenues from other sources like satellite rights, subsidy from the united kingdom government, overseas business etc). Shah Rukh quickly followed up Ra.One with Don 2, which netted Rs. 110 crore when it released two months later.
*Ajay Devgn became a member of the club even before Shah Rukh, surprising because it could seem. His Golmaal 3 released in 2010, just managed to cross the edge figure (it made Rs. 108 crore), and even though it had a multi-star cast, only Ajay gained entry into the club because, of all of the stars of the film, only he can have repeated the feat with a solo starrer a year later (Singham, Rs. 100 crore) in 2011.
*Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar are the most recent entrants to the 100-crore club. Hrithik’s Agneepath, released early this year, managed to earn Rs. 122 crore, while the club doors finally opened for Akshay Kumar with Housefull 2, which earned Rs. 112 crore when it released this April.
Te fine print
The public could have its own definition of hits and flops, however the film industry has always passed by the cost-versus-revenue analysis to figure out success (it is usually the one objective way of defining hits and flops). PLENTY OF avenues of revenue now exist for a producer along with a theatre screening.
But this is a generally accepted principle within the film trade that income from among the other sources like satellite television, home video, etc depends largely at the earnings from the theatrical business of a film.
The 100-crore club doesn't take note the price of a movie because it goes solely by revenue. It's because of this that Shah Rukh Khan, with Ra.One (total cost Rs. 150 crore approx) and Don 2 (total cost Rs. 80-85 crore approx), is as entitled to club membership as Aamir Khan, with a blockbuster like 3 Idiots (total cost Rs. 55 crore approx) and Salman Khan, with a superhit like Bodyguard (total cost Rs. 75-80 crore approx).
Club rules
Like any club, the 100 crore club also has rules of its own. But because it is more a nomenclature than a real club, the foundations are unwritten. In fact, there may be neither a statute nor any memorandum or Articles of Association for Bollywood’s latest club.
Some basic club rules:
You need to be a celebrity to be eligible for membership. The club doesn't recognise some other community – neither producers and directors nor distributors.
You need to be saleable, since only stars whose films collect Rs. 100 crore or more can join the club. (These are net collections, not gross. Net collections are defined as total box-office collections – that is, gross collections minus the entertainment tax). Their saleability is of paramount importance. It's measured on the subject of how much cash their films make.
Since the club is more of a league than an actual club, it goes without saying that its members never really meet under the auspices of the club.
You cannot ‘apply’ for membership in that sense of the term. It comes automatically. The club has no other rules, besides the aforementioned. It's not a registered body.
No woman no cry
Only male stars are members of the club thus far. To grasp why no actress is a member, it should be understood that the club has, after all, been ‘formed’ by the trade and the media. And excluding women from the crowd is characteristic of an industry which exercises gender discrimination greater than other industries.
You will have heard of producers paying Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan fees of Rs. 20 or Rs. 25 crore but have you heard of an Aishwarya Rai or a Kareena Kapoor getting that sort of remuneration? Frankly, the industry can’t be wholly blamed for the gender bias as it is the audience which supplies male actors way more importance than female stars, the occasional Vidya Balan film notwithstanding.
In commercial potboilers (that are the one films able to catapulting their heroes into the club), heroines get far less scope than the heroes, that's the explanation why the club membership has up to now been restricted to male actors.
It would’ve been interesting to look who the industry would’ve inducted into the 100-crore club if The Dirty Picture had touched 100 crore – Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Tusshar or Emraan Hashmi? On second thought, it would’ve been an impossible task for a woman-oriented film to gather Rs. 100 crore within the first place.
An interesting aside: Kareena Kapoor has the utmost selection of 100-crore films under her belt, greater than even Salman Khan. Kareena’s report card reads: 3 Idiots, Golmaal 3, Bodyguard and Ra.One. Unfortunately, because the club isn't open to heroines, Kareena is a non-member despite her enviable score.
Even a number of the male stars, it is just the principle leads who're considered worthy of membership. Sanjay Dutt and Rishi Kapoor in Agneepath were as brilliant as hero Hrithik Roshan and, therefore, by implication, as answerable for the film crossing the Rs. 100-crore mark. But they weren’t included within the club just because they were villains, not heroes. Ditto for Prakash Raj in Singham, whose comic villainy went down famously with the audience; but again, it was only hero Ajay Devgn who made it to the club.
Star power
Interestingly, even though it is the film which touches the 100-crore mark, it's the star who gets membership of the club. That is another indicator of ways stars are worshipped by the industry. Bollywood has always been a star-driven enterprise and it is common for stars to hog the limelight for a hit.
Even in earlier days, when the success of stars and flicks was measured by jubilees, it was Rajendra Kumar who was reverentially known as ‘Jubilee Kumar’ as a result of line of silver and golden jubilees he needed to his credit. No director or producer has ever had the ‘jubilee’ word appended to his name.
Most of the Rs. 100-crore films have worked equally well in multiplexes and single-screen cinemas. Perhaps Don 2 is the one exception as it scored largely within the cineplexes. But unlike most other 100-crore-films, Don 2 had the logo advantage because it was a sequel.
Golmaal 3 had the same brand value even if the former two films weren't half as big or successful. Agneepath had tremendous recall value as a result of 1990 version of Agneepath starring Amitabh Bachchan (even if the primary one was a box office debacle and have become a cult classic only much in a while TV and DVD).
Although there is not any time frame, films normally touch the 100-crore figure in two to four weeks. Today, the business of movies has become touch-and-go. Most hits have a run of only four to 6 weeks. A few of the stars who're members of the club, Salman Khan holds the honor of touching the 100-crore mark within the shortest possible time (Bodyguard, one week!).
It could be interesting to look who the brand new members of the club could be and whether anyone could be in a position to break the records set by Aamir (3 Idiots is the one film to cross the Rs. 200-crore mark) or Salman (Bodyguard is the fastest Rs. 100-crore film).
Komal Nahta is a trade analyst and the editor of Film Information
