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Why India keeps failing the cinema they claim to want!

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Sakshi Sharma
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Homebound and Karan Johar

In September, Indian theatres looked unusually exciting. But if you looked beyond just the theatrical releases of indie films, the numbers told a different story, one that quietly exposes how broken our ecosystem for ‘serious cinema’ really is!

If you’d seen the line-up of September releases, you’d think we were in the middle of an indie cinema revival. Humans In The Loop, Sabar Bonda, Boong, Bad Girl,Jugnuma, and the mighty Homebound, that is also India’s official entry to the Academy Awards, all together hit theatres within a single month. These are films that, just a few years ago, would’ve struggled for even a token release. And yet here they were with nationwide theatrical runs, screenings packed with cinephiles celebrating what felt like a cultural shift. For a moment, it seemed like audiences had evolved that smaller stories, once relegated to film festivals or streaming platforms, were finally finding space in theatres. Or was it all just a farce?

Also Read: #BeyondTheLens: Why are Indian films that are appreciated outside unable to shine here? Industry experts discuss!

Because when you actually open box-office reports, the optimism suddenly evaporates. Most of these films didn’t even cross a few lakhs in earnings. Homebound, despite being backed by Dharma Productions, with executive producer Martin Scorsese lending his name, managed a daily domestic collection of less than ₹60 lakh, and a global gross of only ₹3.68 crore. Meanwhile, just a week later, Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari, another Dharma production, formulaic and star-studded raked in over ₹30 crore domestically within days. So was it really a “movement”? Or just an echo chamber of social media cinephiles screaming the loudest while the world quietly bought tickets to the same old spectacle?

The moral dilemma of making art that doesn’t sell

When Homebound underperformed, Karan Johar’s comments on his recent ₹1,000-crore deal with Adar Poonawalla’s Serene Productions felt almost like a confession of fatigue. He told analyst Komal Nahta on his podcast Game Changers, “I made Homebound, worldwide critically acclaimed, but I can’t say if I’ll take such decisions in the future…Growth comes from profit, and profit comes from profitability. I will always be artistic, but it is important to be commercial as well.”

Something that hurts to hear but you can't help but admit is also true. Because what Johar voiced was the industry’s ongoing moral tug-of-war, the uneasy balance between art and arithmetic. Filmmakers want to take creative risks, but every risk now comes with a cost that no one wants to bear alone. And yet, it’s hard to blame only the producers. Because when audiences themselves don’t show up for the films they keep demanding, who really kills the movie - the industry or its viewers? Everyone claims to be tired of Bollywood’s “same old masala.” Yet when something new comes along, even something like Dhadak 2or Nishaanchi, the seats stay empty. Maybe we’re too exhausted to spend emotional bandwidth on stories that ask for introspection or we’ve been conditioned to treat cinema as comfort, not confrontation. Either way, when audiences don’t show up, neither do distributors. Theatres hesitate to give prime slots. Producers hesitate to take future risks. And the cycle repeats itself.

The system is rigged from the start

Even when smaller films do make it to theatres, they’re often set up to fail. Afternoon time slots. Weekday screenings. Limited marketing. It’s a system that seems designed to quietly bury them. Homebound’s release, for instance, was followed barely a week later by Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari, another Dharma production whose massive promotional blitz completely overshadowed the Oscar entry. So when the word-of-mouth crowd that might have gone to Homebound found themselves flooded with Reels, songs, and talk shows for SSKTK, it wasn’t even a fair fight.

And as Richa Chadha, actor, producer, and outspoken advocate for indie cinema, said recently, it’s never just one thing that kills independent films. “It’s a combination,” she explained. “Audience behaviour, producer choices, unaffordable ticket prices, limited screens, and the monopoly of a few who want to maintain control.” It’s the kind of system where even well-intentioned filmmakers are forced into survival mode. And the audience, ironically, ends up blaming the very people trying to give them something different.

An indie release shouldn’t feel like an act of charity

Of course, September’s indie-heavy line-up wasn’t accidental. Film festivals and awards like the IFFI and the Academy require releases within specific windows. But the larger question remains - why do these films always have to fight for attention against their own ecosystem? If commercial and independent cinema can co-exist in every other major film industry in the world, why does Bollywood insist on pitting them against each other? Why can’t there be better scheduling, smarter marketing, and stronger institutional support? Why can’t we, as an audience, be more curious even for one weekend? Because watching a film like Homebound, Sabar Bonda or Humans In The Loop on a streaming platform isn’t the same as watching it in a theatre. A screen forces you to confront it, to sit with it, feel it, process it. In an age of fleeting attention, that’s not just an aesthetic experience; it’s an emotional exercise. If commercial cinema gets to dominate the conversation, why shouldn’t stories that dare to be different get at least a fair chance to be heard?

So yes it’s great that such films are getting released, that streaming is widening access, that filmmakers are still daring to make what they believe in. But let’s not pretend that means the system has changed. Because the truth is, we still treat indie cinema like an experiment, not an ecosystem. We praise it, but we don’t pay for it. We post about it, but we don’t show up for it. We love it, but we’d rather watch it on OTT. And until that changes, we’ll keep mistaking awareness for acceptance, and visibility for value, so long that these films will stop coming out altogether or will once again become only a part of a niche “intellectual” circle. 

The problem isn’t that independent cinema lacks space, it’s that we keep mistaking the illusion of support for the reality of it. And I, for one, say that wake up from it, and demand better because if it is all dependent on profitability then change your perspective towards what is family cinema and stop settling for rehashed versions of tired old cliches in the name of entertainment!

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Karan Johar Sabar Bonda humans in the loop Jugnuma Nishaanchi dhadak 2 Dharma productions Richa Chadha