Numero Unos: A survey of the top hit films of 2000’s – Part VI

By Rajiv Vijayakar -

August 6, 2012 - 5:32 AM IST

Over the last six decades, it is indeed a fascinating exercise to see which films proved the topmost box-office hits in each year from 1950 till the present. Their successes proved eye-openers not just for film buffs, industry and trade but frequently for their makers themselves, proving that hits happen and cannot be designed! In Part VI of this 7-part series, we examine the films that have topped the box-office each year from 2000 to 2009.

Numero Unos: A survey of the top hit films of 2000’s – Part VI

The Top Guns
In terms of footfalls, it was a clear-cut triumph for Anil Sharma's Gadar - Ek Prem Katha (2001), a Sikh- Muslim love story set against the backdrop of Partition - its 75 crore-plus collections, inflation adjusted, would probably reach around Rs 350 crore today. It started the trend of round-the-clock shows to meet demands in Punjab!

However, in terms of actual collections (as ticket rates had been hiked by multiples) Rajkumar Hirani's 3 Idiots (2009), a comedy with a message leads at Rs 220 crore. The millennium also saw the first-ever 100 crore film, A.R.Murugadoss' 2008 vendetta thriller Ghajini. Corporate companies entered the film world and gradually replaced more personalized financing, including that of the underworld. What was interesting, with big prestige involved, is the way the smaller films that had greater ROI (return on investment) ratios were sidelined due to the huge overall business of the biggies.

So though Murder, an erotic thriller directed by Anurag Basu, was rightly called the biggest hit of 2004 despite Main Hoon Na and Dhoom, a year later in 2005, Kyaa Kool Hain Hum lost to No Entry (both were interestingly sex comedies, though of contrasting kinds), while in 2008, Jaane Tuâ€¦Ya Jaane Na (a rom-com) made way for Ghajini (interestingly both connected with Aamir Khan as co-producer of the first and hero of the second!) as the latter collected over 110 crore - the first-ever Hindi film to cross the 100 crore mark.

The remaining years saw the following Numero Unos:
2000: Rakesh Roshan's Kaho Naaâ€¦Pyaar Hai (KNPH), a crime drama
2002: Vikram Bhatt's RaazÂ¸ a supernatural thriller
2003: Rakesh Roshan's Koiâ€¦Mil Gaya (KMG) a sci-fi story on an alien and Rajkumar
Hirani's Munna Bhai MBBSÂ¸ a 'medical' comedy (in a tie)
2006: Sanjay Gadhvi's Dhoom:2, an action caper and
2007: Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om (OSO)Â¸ a reincarnation drama

A diverse spectrum

The kind of films that topped in individual years saw a complete spectrum from original to remakes - at one end was Koiâ€¦Mil Gaya, Hindi cinema's first tryst with the sci-fi genre with aliens. Though Rakesh Roshan was clearly inspired by E.T., he adapted and Indianized it wonderfully and made the film's alien, Jadoo, a lovable creature no one would ever forget. Also a film with a pinch of inspiration and everything otherwise original and rooted was Munna Bhai MBBS, India's first comedy on the medical profession - a common genre abroad. Both films jointly topped 2003 and were among the most refreshing entertainers of the millennium.

Such was the excellence of the later (Rajkumar Hirani easily is the finest director to come in the entire decade) that the film was not only remade in multiple Indian languages but also the first Idnian film officially licensed for a Hollywood remake, which however has yet to take off.

At the other end was Roshan's own Kaho Naaâ€¦Pyaar HaiÂ¸which made Hrithik Roshan a mega-star with the best launch any actor's son has got since Rishi Kapoor in Bobby. The plot was, however, smartly reworked from the 1984 flop Jhoota Sach starring Dharmendra. Raaz was a pativrataa naari tale garbed in supernatural attire and stuck a chord instantly, helped by with its old-world (as in '90s!) Nadeem-Shravan melodies. OSO was an open tribute to Subhash Ghai's Karz and its climax was recycled from Madhumati.

No Entry and Ghajini were official South remakes, which have now become endemic. Murder 'adapted' a Hollywood thriller, and if Raaz, Murder, Koiâ€¦Mil Gaya, Munna Bhai and No Entry set off a train of sequels, Dhoom:2 was itself the second in its franchise.

Starry ascent

Hrithik Roshan remained the superstar discovery of the millennium, though most his super-hits were made by his father. In a dream debut, the actor played a dual role in KNPH and was cast as a physically-challenged man in Koiâ€¦Mil Gaya. But in his third film in this list, he did a 180-degree flip as the razor sharp crook of Dhoom: 2, the arch criminal who is always that one step ahead of the cops.

Amisha Patel scored a unique feat by being the heroine of the biggest hits in two consecutive years, Kaho Naaâ€¦ and Gadar, also her first two films. After his, thanks to a variety of factors, her career nosedived. Arshad Warsi got a new lease of life and Sanjay Dutt consolidated his comic image with Munna Bhai MBBS. The Bhatts made new talent their special forte - Dino Morea got his first hit in Raaz, which also consolidated the career of Bipasha Basu, while Emraan Hashmi and Mallika Sherawat got career-defining roles in Murder. Deepika Padukone, like Hrithik, made her debut in a dual role in OSOÂ¸ where Shah Rukh was also in a double role. Shreyas Talpade got his first hit in the same film. Asin made her Hindi debut in Ghajini, the first of her now four films in the "100-crore club." Incidentally, Bipasha Basu played twin sisters in Dhoom 2.

Aamir Khan was the only actor apart from Hrithik to have more than one film in the Numero Uno list. Among the heroines, Bipasha Basu scored the highest (Raaz, No Entry, Dhoom 2).

Rakesh Roshan (Kaho Naaâ€¦, Koiâ€¦Mil Gaya) narrowly missed a Numero Uno hat-trick in Krrish, which lost to Dhoom 2 that had higher global collections vis-Ã -vis a lesser budget. Like him, Raju Hirani also had two films in this list (Munna Bhai MBBS, 3 Idiots), both produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and so did the Bhatts - Mukesh Bhatt produced and Mahesh Bhatt wrote both Raaz (co-produced by Tips) and Murder. Reliance Entertainment was the first corporate entity to strike big - Ghajini and 3 Idiots. Eros came in with OSO and Sahara joined Boney Kapoor for No Entry. Gadarâ€¦, incidentally, was produced by Zee Network. It is interesting to know that except for Gadar, Raaz, Munna Bhai MBBS, Ghajini and 3 Idiots, the other six films were home productions of at least one of the actors in their casts - Murder coming from Emraan's uncles, the Bhatts!

Rajesh Roshan, by association, came into both the Roshan films, but the lead was taken by Anu Malik with Munna Bhai MBBS, Murder and No Entry in three consecutive years. Sameer led the lyricists with three films (Raaz, No Entry, Dhoom 2) - the same three films as Bipasha!

Technically, Hindi films forged ahead by leaps and bounds. Shooting abroad became common, and whether the film was a romantic film, action-based or message-oriented, up market humour became a compulsory ingredient. Music went down in importance, but we still had good scores in most of the films. The music and lyrics of 3 Idiots stood out for their thematic perfection while KNPH and OSO had well-rounded scores.

Films suffered an identity crisis in the millennium, and three diverse schools emerged, of the dark, noir kind of European-inspired films like Dev D and Omkara, realistic high-concept films like A Wednesday or Taare Zameen Par and the classic Hindi film kind. But the latter clearly kept ahead in the race. As always, it was all about entertainment.

Click here to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5