DHWANI CHANDEL, a Mumbai-based marketing professional, keeps Fridays aside for movies. It gets even better if it is experiencing a film on the large screen. In early May, Dhwani, wanting to catch a film at the nearest PVR, began to flip through her BookMyShow app.

“Of late, I have not come across a decent Hindi film to watch. When there are some great Hollywood releases, my Fridays are sorted. But I do miss a good Hindi film, you know,” she says. As she began to flip through possible movies being shown at the nearest theatre on her phone, she suddenly paused; this Friday would be different.

And there it was: Andaz Apna Apna. The poster of the 1994 cult classic stared back at her, almost 31 years since it first came out. In the foreground one can see Aamir Khan and Salman Khan, with their unmistakable chocolate boy looks. Orbiting them is a constellation of characters: Shakti Kapoor’s gleefully unhinged Crime Master Gogo, Paresh Rawal’s Teja — yes, the one with that mark — and, of course, Karishma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon playing Karishma and Raveena, a delightfully meta-cinematic nod to their off-screen personas. Dhwani’s fingers took less than a minute to book her ticket. “It was like I was being summoned by the movie,” she laughs.

Dhwani isn’t alone. Across cities, from Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, audiences old and young have flocked to theatres for films they had already watched a dozen times. And which are readily available on OTT platforms. Ardh Satya, Dhadkan, Darr, Piku, Tumbbad, Sanam Teri Kasam — the list is endless. The trend is unmistakable: old stories playing out on the big screen. No twists. No CGI wizardry. Just familiar lines and remembered feelings. Yes, one could very well call it nostalgia. Or multiplexes cashing in on nostalgia. But something stranger, deeper seems also to be at play here. Because it isn’t really about old films coming back to life. It’s about what happens when a film industry no longer knows what to offer next.

A comprehensive strategy

For PVR INOX, India’s largest multiplex conglomerate, re-releases of older films is now a major part of its growth strategy. If we go by 2024 figures, just from April to August of that year, the Ajay Bijli-led multiplex chain re-released 47 films for the large screen. The number of films being added to that roster has grown since. Speaking to Fortune India, Niharika Bijli, lead strategist at PVR INOX and the driving force behind the re-release strategy, makes it clear that the company is taking this initiative very seriously.

“This re-release concept has existed for a long time,” she says. “Back in the day, in Saket or Priya or Select Citywalk, we used to have shows once a week where we re-released an older film — may it be an English movie or a Bollywood movie that had a certain kind of following.” Even though the concept isn’t new, it took on a more organised turn, sometime towards the summer of 2023, when Bijli and her team sensed that there was a gap in between releases of current films. “It started off as an experiment with films like Laila Majnu and Rockstar,” she says. “The gap between newer films was a lot, and to have a 1,700-screen circuit… we were just ideating on what we could do to fill in this lull period. Older films were a no-brainer,” she adds. But what began as a stop-gap option soon turned into a full-fledged strategy. “We were surprised by the response,” reveals Bijli. “We didn’t expect Laila Majnu or even Rockstar to do the numbers that we got. It was extremely heartening.”

For Bijli, the strong turnout was a testament not just to the power of the films themselves, but also to the enduring appeal of the big screen. “These films are available on several platforms, often for free or at a fraction of the cost,” she pointed out. “So, people choosing to come to the theatre means they want more — they want the communal, immersive experience.”

Today, re-releases have been institutionalised within PVR INOX’s programming strategy. “Our programming department now has re-releases as a subset. It’s something we’re looking at quite seriously,” Bijli reveals.

She agrees that older films can never compete with new blockbusters in terms of box office performance. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a space for them to exist. Also, when it comes to re-releases, the screen count is less. “We limit the screen count — between 50 to 300 screens... [and] it’s more metro-driven... unless we see organic demand in other cities… The release is fairly limited, but the response within those constraints has been very encouraging,” Bijli explains.

A complex picture

Let us highlight an important point: if audiences, such as Dhwani are responding instinctively, almost emotionally, to the re-release of these old films, the responses of industry professionals, instead, are more cautious.

Enter Varun Gupta. Not one to be swept away by buzzwords or fleeting trends, Gupta, the founder director of MAX Marketing and a seasoned hand in Bollywood’s promotional ecosystem, has been quietly watching this re-release phenomenon take shape from the inside. And if there’s one point he’s certain of, it’s this: the phenomenon of re-releases is not an accident; nor is it a strategy one has just chanced upon.

“Let us look at what is working and what is not,” says Gupta. As he explains, the re-release phenomenon kicked off with Imtiaz Ali’s 2011 musical-romance film, Rockstar in Bollywood. “See that was more about celebrating a film loved by many. Then PVR released Jab We Met on Valentine’s Day [2024] as part of a festival — and that’s when they started getting a great response,” he adds. For him, the initial success of these cult titles set off the wave one is witnessing now.

Gupta points out that not all re-releases have been a success. “There is a pattern here. Which are the movies that have done well?” he asks. The answer, according to him, is simple: there is, for example, the 2018 Triptii Dimri-starrer Laila Majnu, then there is the cult horror film, Tumbbad, and then there is the 2016 film, Sanam Teri Kasam. As Gupta explains, what is common to these films is that most of them had an underwhelming performance at the box office upon release or barely lingered in theatres. Yet, over time, they carved out a lasting place in the public imagination. “People wanted to experience them on the big screen because they missed it the first time,” he says. “In contrast, widely watched hits like DDLJ, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, and Rockstar succeeded on re-release because they had already defined love for an entire generation.”

Symptom and prognosis

Yes, nostalgia is a powerful weapon to use as a business strategy. And maybe PVR INOX could have stumbled upon a winning strategy here. But there’s a corollary to this: nostalgia is not only universal, but also timeless. Why is it then that multiplexes have stumbled upon the re-release strategy just now? If it existed in the past, why was it not used then? Why bring back older movies now, especially when they are all available on OTT platforms, and, perhaps, for free elsewhere? In other words, if we scratch the surface, can we glean something more, perhaps a greater mechanism?

The answer leads us straight into the very heart of Bollywood and its current state. And it is while chasing this question that I stumble upon a recent podcast — one that brought a far more personal, textured voice into the frame. Actor Kalki Koechlin wasn’t dissecting a box office graph or quoting audience retention metrics. She simply used one word to describe the present state of the Hindi film industry: ‘recession’.

One morning in late May, I catch up with her. And although the conversation starts with the phenomenon of re-releases, it turns out that this is only a symptom, which requires a deeper prognosis: the Hindi film industry is going through a “struggling period,” Koechlin points out, marked by uncertainty, creative confusion, and a general lull in employment across the board — from actors to crew members.

“Nobody really knows what’s working, and nobody seems to be able to predict what’s going to work,” she says. “People are not going to the cinema as much as they used to, because everything is accessible on a phone or a laptop. So, there’s just less footfall.”

Echoing Koechlin, Mumbai-based film trade analyst Taran Adarsh points out that while the practice of re-releasing a film existed in the past, there is a surge in such activity now because multiplexes are witnessing dwindling footfall. “There’s no denying that footfalls have declined, and theatres are looking for ways to bring audiences back. But I also think this is part of a larger correction happening within the industry,” he says.

Spelling out the broader contours of this “correction” in the Hindi film industry, Adarsh explains that a new trend has percolated into the industry where the producer is concerned more about recovering a film’s budget than focussing on making a great film.

“The industry had been making what I call ‘proposals’ instead of solid films. Projects were being greenlit based on how much could be recovered from satellite, OTT, overseas, and music rights — even before the first scene was shot,” he says.

While she does acknowledge that she isn’t privy to the financials of producers, Koechlin offers a glimpse into the day-to-day anxiety within the film community. “A lot of my friends — actors who aren’t A-listers, but who aren’t unknown either — are messaging each other, saying: ‘Are you unemployed, too?’” she says. “I’ve had several actors talk about this. Some of them have gone to work in Telugu cinema or other South industries for the first time, because they don’t have work here.” It’s not just actors who are feeling the crunch. “So many spot boys have contacted me, so many crew members have told me they’re out of work,” she says.

Koechlin herself has turned increasingly to theatre, not just as a fallback, but to stay creatively engaged. She’s also found ways to monetise that engagement. “I’ve gotten smarter at selling that work. I do a lot of corporate gigs, live shows, on womanhood, motherhood, LGBTQ rights, gender equality. It sustains me in these times.”

Koechlin’s lived experience is borne out by data. According to the 2024 Ficci-EY report on the media and entertainment industry in India, last year saw a fall of 5% in filmed entertainment. While in 2022, the industry earned ₹17,200 crore in revenue (across all verticals), it rose to ₹19,700 crore in 2023 but dropped to ₹18,700 crore in 2024. These are the overall box office figures, including non-Hindi language films.

But the reason behind the fall? The report’s assessment is crystal clear.

“Poor performance of large budget Hindi films, as well as some South films, led to a drop in overall box office collections; a fewer number of hits drove a larger proportion of revenues, with some estimates showing that more than 70% of total box office earnings were delivered by just the Top 10 films. The trend is clear: either a film is hugely successful at the theatre, or it tends to completely underperform,” it reads.

For Koechlin, the crux of the matter seems to be the fact that in Bollywood, there isn’t a workable business model and a new one needs to be invented. As she explains, the boom of OTT platforms in India initially offered hope, but that has almost died down.

The lack of a clear model, whether for content creation or audience engagement, is what she believes is creating fear and hesitation within the industry. “That lack of prediction is what’s making everyone nervous to even put money into projects, because they’re not sure what’s working anymore,” Koechlin says.

With so much of uncertainty brimming under the surface, the phenomenon of re-releases reflects both the enduring magic of cinema, and also the shifting sands beneath the Hindi film industry.

Yes, for audiences, it offers a return to the comfort of stories that feel known and safe. And for multiplexes, it has become a viable strategy to keep the screens running during a period of uncertainty. But for those within the industry, it quietly signals a deeper churn — an admission that the present isn’t quite delivering, and that the future remains unclear.

Only the past exists.