Two releases, nine on track to the finish line by 2019 – sport was everyone’s favourite subject in cinema this year. In the coming months, almost every other biopic will be a sports film! Here’s why you’ll see a lot more sweat and blood on the big screen
Abhimanyu Mathur (BOMBAY TIMES; December 31, 2018)

The year 2018 saw eight biopics hit the screens. From a controversial writer in pre-Partition India and a movie star, to a crusader against menstrual taboos, there was no common theme in the films, except for two — both Soorma and Gold were films based on hockey. One told the story of Sandeep Singh, who fought bullet wounds to stage a miraculous comeback, and the other told the legendary tale of independent India’s first Olympic gold. Although sports biopics have been around for over a decade — Chak De! India set the ball rolling — 2018 was the year that really hit the ball out of the park. Apart from the two releases, the year saw over a dozen announcements of films on past Olympic champions, current sporting sensations, and even forgotten glory tales from Indian sport.

From on-field victories to on-screen hits
Over the next twelve months, at least nine sports biopics are up for release, which constitute almost 40 per cent of the total biopics being made in Hindi. And you can’t blame the makers. All the sports biopics made over the last five years have recovered their cost in box-office sales. Add to it satellite rights and other earnings, and making a sports biopic seems to be a sure shot money-earner. So, what makes these movies tick? Screenwriter Prasoon Joshi, who wrote Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, says, “When I was researching for the film, I met Milkha Singh ji and interacted with him. As I was leaving, I heard him say to someone else, “Iss aadmi ko sports mein koi interest nahi. Bas personal sawaal pooch raha tha.” And that is true. For me, Milkha Singh’s story is not a story of sports, but one of struggle. That’s what sports films give us — the underdogs, the winners who emerge from struggle, which is a universal theme. That’s why they work.”

It’s no secret that the real money in sports when it comes to India is in cricket — men’s cricket to be precise. According to a leading international publication, seven out of the top 10 highest-earning Indian sportspersons in 2017 were male cricketers. Curiously enough though, when it comes to cinema, cricket movies are not among the top-earners. The highest-grossing sports movies of India are usually based on female sportspersons from small towns in less-than-glamorous sports. Dangal earned Rs 2,000 crore as opposed to the Rs 216 crore run of MS Dhoni’s biopic. Mary Kom’s biopic earned more than the documentary of Sachin Tendulkar and biopic of Mohammad Azharuddin, neither of which crossed the Rs 100-crore mark at the box office. “In the last few years, even as sports viewers, we have been moving away from just cricket. With the badminton, kabaddi, and all other leagues coming up, audience today is exposed to more sports and more stories from those sports. What we look for are unknown stories and that we get from other sports. The more unknown the story, the greater the intrigue. Ab Sachin ki life ke baare mein toh humein sab pata hi hai. From childhood, we have grown up tabulating each incident, each run, and each record of his. This is where the newer stories and achievers from relatively less popular sports come in,” says writer Saiwyn Quadras, who wrote Mary Kom, and is currently writing a script on the Indian football team’s win at the 1962 Asian Games.

Actors say that despite the extensive training and preparation, the thrill of playing a sportsperson and getting a peek into an achiever’s mind is what attracts them to this genre. Speaking to us earlier this year, Shraddha Kapoor, who plays badminton champion Saina Nehwal in her next, had said, “There is so much training that goes into it, there is a lot of hard work that goes into it. It is extensive prep, it is extremely demanding, but I am very excited to play the role. I held her Olympic medal in my hand, that is one heavy medal. It must have been such a terrific feeling to win that medal. It was a surreal moment for me to hold that medal.”

Many in the industry say it’s a welcome trend, since cinema can use its wide reach to highlight more stories of sports that are relatively unknown to audience. Akshay Kumar, who played a hockey coach in Gold, says, “Sports films can make a lot of difference. Cinema has the power to bring about change. Sports films can go a long way in creating sports culture in the country. Films like Dangal, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, etc. told people in India that there are other sports in the country apart from cricket; other sportspersons we can be proud of. And cinema needs to keep doing that.”



SPORTS BIOPICS YOU’LL SEE IN 2019/2020 – AND JUST ONE OF THEM IS ON CRICKET

- ’83 (based on India’s first Cricket World Cup win), starring Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev
- Saina Nehwal biopic, starring Shraddha Kapoor
- Pullela Gopichand biopic, starring Sudheer Babu
- Dingko Singh biopic, starring Shahid Kapoor as the boxer
- KD Jadhav biopic, starring Sangram Singh as the wrestler
- Abhinav Bindra biopic, starring Harshvardhan Kapoor as the Olympic gold medallist
- Para athlete Murlikant Petkar biopic, starring Sushant Singh Rajput
- Film on Mohun Bagan’s 1911 win over East Yorkshire Football Club, starring John Abraham
- Film on the Indian football team that won the 1962 Asian Games, starring Ajay Devgn
- Biopics on Dhyan Chand, PT Usha, PV Sindhu, Mithali Raj and Deepa Malik have also been announced