"Slapstick, mindless humour will not work anymore. Intelligent comedy, one that will make audiences laugh, but also think, is the order of the day," said producer Vipul Shah.
Shah's film ‘Singh is Kinng’, a romantic action-comedy starring actor Akshay Kumar, raked in a record profit at the box office. Shah said his film worked because the comedy was clean and simple.
Comedy has always been a favourite Bollywood genre with filmmakers such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Kishore Kumar delivering hugely successful films from 1950s onwards for over three decades.
"We have seen in the past that comedies do work at the box office, but the genre of that comedy is changing," said Siddarth Roy Kapur of UTV. "Audiences are no longer willing to laugh along with us if the script doesn't make sense."
Kapur's latest release ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’, a film revolving around an educated protagonist who offers to write letters for the illiterate people of Sajjanpur village, has received positive response from audience. In addition to critical acclaim, the film grossed Rs 12 crore in its first week alone.
"I don't like mindless comedy. My comedy is verbal comedy, not slapstick, and I hope audiences appreciate that kind of humour," director Shyam Benegal said of ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’.
Bollywood churns out at least 20 comedies a year, some of them with a big star cast, but not all find success at the box office, said trade analayst Taran Adarsh.
"Audiences have learnt to separate the wheat from the chaff. Just because you insert a few laughs, doesn't mean you have a successful film on hand."
