India’s Bollywood film industry has entertained billions of people – but for how much longer?

The industry is facing its biggest-ever crisis as the competition heats up in the streaming war

The South Asian giant churns out almost 2,000 films each year.

Cinemas have fallen quiet, even in Bollywood’s nerve centre of Mumbai, with box-office receipts plunging.

Bollywood is also hurt by the rise of streaming.

Around half of India’s population has access to the internet and streaming services, including international players such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar have 96 million subscriptions.

Movie-goers told AFP that many Bollywood films were simply not good enough.

But streaming isn’t the only rival – Telugu-language aka Tollywood movies, which is a south Indian competitor to Hindi-language Bollywood, have soared to the top.

“Bollywood, after decades of storytelling… seems to be at an inflection point unlike any other disruption it has faced before,”

State Bank of India’s chief economic adviser Soumya Kanti Ghosh in a recent report.

The Bollywood industry needs to pivot fast to maintain its large audience who are consuming their films elsewhere post-pandemic.