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By:

Bharati Dubey

17 May 2026 at 1:38:10 am

Raja Shivaji sparks a new era for Marathi cinema

Mumbai: As Raja Shivaji marches steadily towards the Rs 100 crore mark, the film has reignited debate around the future of the Marathi film industry. Having already crossed Rs 80 crore at the Indian box office, the historical drama is now only the second Marathi film after Sairat to achieve the milestone. Its success has raised a larger question within the trade: can a major blockbuster finally attract sustained investment into Marathi cinema, an industry often marked by cycles of growth and...

Raja Shivaji sparks a new era for Marathi cinema

Mumbai: As Raja Shivaji marches steadily towards the Rs 100 crore mark, the film has reignited debate around the future of the Marathi film industry. Having already crossed Rs 80 crore at the Indian box office, the historical drama is now only the second Marathi film after Sairat to achieve the milestone. Its success has raised a larger question within the trade: can a major blockbuster finally attract sustained investment into Marathi cinema, an industry often marked by cycles of growth and slowdown? Much of the buzz surrounding the film stems from the support it received from prominent Hindi film stars, several of whom reportedly came on board to back the project and the industry. Trade analyst Girish Wankhede believes the film’s biggest achievement lies in the scale of collaboration it represents. “The real strength of Raja Shivaji lies in its creative ensemble star cast, which Riteish Deshmukh successfully brought together. By roping in heavyweight Hindi stars like Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, and Salman Khan, the film showcases the immense combined value of cross-industry collaboration. This strong gesture of Hindi cinema’s biggest names extending full support to a Marathi project has created a powerful impression, generating tremendous curiosity and respect for Marathi cinema among audiences, investors, and other industries. It underscores how Marathi films can now command pan-Indian attention and star power,” he says. At the same time, Wankhede feels it may still be premature to call the film a runaway commercial success given its production scale and costs. “What is heartening is the visible new energy and creative fuel that Riteish Deshmukh has infused into Marathi cinema. With him at the helm of affairs, the film looks strong and polished, and this momentum, further amplified by the star support, is already drawing serious attention from investors who were earlier hesitant about the regional space,” he adds. Producer Suniel Wadhwa, Co-Founder and Director of Karmic Films, says the film’s performance could play an important role in rebuilding investor confidence in theatrical cinema. “The success of Raja Shivaji could significantly improve investor confidence in theatrical cinema, especially at a time when many non-film investors have become cautious about the sector. If the film succeeds as a large-scale theatrical event rather than just an opening weekend phenomenon, it will reinforce the belief that culturally rooted Indian stories still possess massive commercial potential across regions and demographics,” he says. However, Wadhwa points out that the industry continues to face deep structural challenges. “One of the biggest is the shortage of true theatrical stars who can create urgency for audiences to step into cinemas. Streaming has created visibility, but not necessarily ticket-selling mythology. At the same time, India remains heavily under-screened, and even strong films often struggle with inadequate show slots, limited showcasing windows, and overcrowded release calendars. Many films today are judged within the first 48–72 hours, leaving little room for organic word-of-mouth growth,” he says. According to him, the theatrical business is evolving rather than disappearing. “Audiences are now reserving cinema outings for event-driven experiences — spectacle, emotion, mythology, action, horror-comedy, and culturally resonant storytelling. Films that can create that collective viewing urgency will continue to attract both audiences and serious investment capital,” he adds. The Marathi film industry has witnessed a mixed year so far. More than two dozen films have released, but only a handful — including Raja Shivaji, Kranti Vidyalay Marathi Madhyam, Aga Aga Sunbai Mahnatay Sasubai, and Super Duper — have performed strongly at the box office. Veteran journalist Dilip Thakur believes Marathi cinema has already begun regaining momentum after the slowdown caused by the pandemic. “New Marathi films are getting launched regularly. The upcoming film Bapya had its screening at Sunny Super Sound, which was attended by non-Marathi journalists in big numbers. The story of Bapya is complex and difficult to make. The point here is that a producer agreed to put his money into the film. Sabar Bonda was another difficult subject which won an award at Sundance. So, producers willing to invest money in such subjects is one positive sign,” he says. Thakur also points to the continued appetite for mainstream Marathi entertainers. “The boom after Sairat still exists in Marathi cinema. There was a setback for four years because of Covid, but the industry has gained momentum. Ravi Jadhav’s new film Fulawara, based on tamasha folk art, will soon go on floors in Pune,” he says. He further notes that Marathi cinema is increasingly attracting investors from outside the industry. “Most Marathi films have non-Marathi investors. They are putting in money because there is business in Marathi cinema. But not every film becomes a hit. Subhash Ghai also produced a few Marathi films. If the subject is good, people are willing to invest,” he adds. Not everyone, however, is convinced that one major hit can alter the industry’s fortunes overnight. Nitin Datar, president of the Cinema Owners Association, remains cautious about reading too much into the film’s success. “Only one film success is not going to bring investors. In the last five years, out of nearly 500 films produced, the success rate has not been encouraging,” he says. Datar acknowledges that the presence of Hindi stars has helped boost the film’s commercial appeal but stresses that Marathi cinema still lacks enough bankable stars capable of consistently drawing audiences to theatres. “The production houses and directors have attracted audiences. Unfortunately, producers haven’t been successful in attracting financial assistance, which has resulted in low production and advertising budgets. But if films succeed in pulling audiences over the weekend, exhibitors automatically increase shows and reduce screenings of underperforming films from other languages. The audience is always there, waiting to visit theatres in large numbers for a good film,” he says. For now, Raja Shivaji has undeniably given Marathi cinema a strong moment in the spotlight. Whether that momentum translates into long-term financial confidence and sustained industry growth remains the larger question.

A City Too Precious to Burn

“Is Paris burning?” barked Hitler down the telephone to General Dietrich von Choltitz in August 1944, as the Allies pressed into France and the Führer awaited news of destruction. The city of light, he decreed, was to become a city of ashes. Yet when the smoke cleared, the bridges stood, Notre Dame still lifted its spire and the boulevards rang with liberation.


The Liberation of Paris 81 years ago to this week (on August 25) was a turning point not only militarily but symbolically. It was the moment when France reclaimed its soul. Two decades later, director René Clément turned that chapter of history into Paris brûle-t-il? (Is Paris Burning?), released in 1966, a film that sought to match the grandeur of the event with an equally monumental canvas.


Clément’s epic belonged to a cinematic tradition born out of the early 1960s, when war movies ceased to be intimate tales of a few soldiers and instead became ensemble spectacles. Darryl F. Zanuck had set the template with ‘The Longest Day’ (1962), a lavish re-enactment of the Normandy landings.


That film boasted an army of stars including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery appearing in brisk cameos. Its massive success bred imitation with the decade yielded a string of ‘all-star’ war epics like the ‘Battle of the Bulge’ (1965) that lumbered with glaring inaccuracies and the ‘Battle of Britain’ (1969) which unfurled a sky full of Spitfires and Messerschmitts.


But Clément’s film, based on Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s 1965 bestseller, was the most ambitious. In their propulsive narrative, Collins and Lapierre traced the underground resistance, the French communists and Gaullists competing for control, the arrival of General Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division, and the delicate diplomacy of Allied generals reluctant to waste men for symbolic glory.


The book read like a thriller; Clément filmed it as one. The director marshalled an extraordinary cast of French cinematic greats like Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Yves Montand. Orson Welles, in one of his many mercenary European turns, portrayed the Swedish consul Raoul Nordling, whose negotiations with von Choltitz arguably saved the city while Kirk Douglas and Glenn Ford lent Hollywood gravitas.


The film’s appeal lay not in character development but in the mosaic, the sense that history was enacted by dozens of individuals across different strata. What makes ‘Is Paris Burning?’ different from the other war spectacles was that it revelled in ambiguity.


The resistance, fractured along ideological lines, appeared almost as dangerous to itself as to the Germans. Von Choltitz, played with weary humanity by Gert Fröbe (later famous as Goldfinger), was no mere cardboard villain but a man torn between duty and conscience. Nordling’s suave diplomacy supplied the crucial moral counterpoint. And Paris itself, shot in stark black and white despite the Technicolor fashion of the era, emerged as the true protagonist. By refusing colour, Clément emphasised the historical immediacy and newsreel verisimilitude. The Eiffel Tower, the boulevards and bridges became stages in a drama of survival, powered on by a glorious score by the great Maurice Jarre, by then internationally famous for his collaborations with David Lean, having composed the iconic scores for ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962) and ‘Doctor Zhivago’ (1965).


Commercially, though, the film was less triumphant than its predecessors. Audiences, already saturated with war epics, found it ponderous. Americans, in particular, struggled to identify with a story centred more on French pride and problems than Allied heroics.


Critics carped at the longueurs. Yet the film, when viewed today, retains a sharpness precisely because it was less about spectacle than about a city’s fragile reprieve. The very existence of such films reflects the 1960s mood. Two decades after the war, memories remained vivid as survivors still led governments. Cinema became a form of collective commemoration, dramatizing events on a scale no history textbook could manage.


The Liberation of Paris remains one of those episodes where the symbolic outweighed the strategic. Militarily, the Germans were retreating anyway.


Yet Paris mattered: to de Gaulle, who saw it as the fulcrum of his restored authority; to Eisenhower, who feared being bogged down in urban fighting; to Hitler, who wished for one last monument to his nihilism.


On this anniversary of the city’s liberation, the film deserves fresh appraisal. In an age of computer-generated spectacle, its black-and-white clarity and documentary sobriety feel bracing.


Clément’s epic remains the most thoughtful of the war spectacles that Hollywood and Europe produced in the 1960s.

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