A mere teaser for the high-budget upcoming film Adipurush managed to enrage the audience, which chastised the filmmakers for using heavy and unappealing VFX and special effects. A few months back, the Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt starrer Brahmastra, also made on a high budget of approximately Rs. 410 crores, faced criticism for only relying on VFX and not on a strong storyline. On the contrary, when the low-budget Telugu-language superhero movie HanuMan’s teaser gained attention for its impressive visual effects, it triggered a debate among movie buffs about whether makers really need to go overboard with VFX and their budgets?

We spoke to industry experts and stakeholders to find out if spending more on VFX guaranteed success at the box office.

Producer Ramesh Taurani asserts that one can never plan the budget in advance for large-scale movies: “It’s not necessary that a film’s budget will always stay the same. Filmmaking is a creative process, and sometimes a lot more or a lot less is invested than what the makers had initially planned. There are so many ifs and buts involved. Every big film, from Titanic (1997) to others, was never completed within the budget that was assigned at the beginning. And creative satisfaction is more important than anything else.” 

Whereas, VFX artiste and creative director at Futureworks, Abhishek De, points out that quite often, the budget shown by the filmmakers and their team isn’t real. “Producers and distributors play a game where they show up different figures to hype up the film. It’s all about marketing. So even the smaller films that are not big in scale manage to create a buzz because of the figures. While it can work in their favour sometimes, it can also backfire.”

Animator and VFX company owner Rajiv Chilaka believes that first and foremost, filmmakers need a clear vision when it comes to spending money on VFX.

“The price of VFX will inevitably increase if the director keeps changing the script because he’s unsure of what he wants. With Adipurush, I feel they rushed a bit, and being heavy on VFX, they didn’t give proper time to the film’s pre-production, which needed to be very strong. When [filmmaker] S S Rajamouli makes a film, he shoots certain sequences for 200 days, hence its high budget. However, when people try to achieve similar results by spending the same amount of money but don’t devote enough time to it (fulfilling pre- and post-production requirements), things don’t go well,” Chilaka explains.

He adds that for the Indian market, the production budget should not exceed ₹150 crore, which can only be reduced with proper planning.

What’s the deal with movies nowadays being high on VFX and CGI and low on plots? That’s the question cinephiles are raising after watching Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra and the teaser of Adipurush. Moreover, it’s also being reported that there are several projects, including Ram Setu, Ramayana, Krrish 4, among others, which are likely to be high on VFX too. We asked industry experts to weigh in on this new phenomenon.

Trade expert Joginder Tuteja explains that every “filmmaker wants something out-of-the-box to pull audiences to theatres. That’s why when it comes to cinematic experience, most of them are focusing on VFX nowadays”.

He adds, “Gone are those days when you could release mid-budget, mid-scale films with constrained visuals.”

In response to the criticism that VFX is being used as a marketing tool to promote films, trade analyst Atul Mohan says, “content is king, marketing is queen”. He says, “Brahmastra was a great example of this. They were the first ones to make a movie that was high on VFX and never had been attempted before in India. And there is no harm in using that for marketing. You have seen several movies featuring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, but VFX was the film’s USP.”

Film critic and trade analyst Komal Nahta notes, “What’s going wrong is not the promotion, but fringe elements creating controversies around any and every film. These days, it has become fashionable to criticize. Content is important, but VFX aisa hai, ye character waisa dikhta hai, ye galat hai, ye sahi hai. Who are you to pass those judgments?”

Whereas, Tuteja feels not just audiences, but even filmmakers go overboard discussing these elements, and that’s where they go wrong when they disclose the film’s budget and create unwarranted pressure on the stakeholders. “Instead, go ahead, make a movie and release it. You talk so much about it and people start expecting the moon, and when the results are not on the same line, disappointment follows,” he elaborates.

That being said, tech advancements in cinema are only a welcome change, but an excess of everything is bad. Abhishek De, creative director, FutureWorks, shares, “Films like Brahmastra and Adipurush need VFX. One is a period piece, while the other features mythological characters that cannot be created without the use of visual effects. When you talk about Ram Setu, you cannot create a set like that and shoot people walking on it. However, how you do it is the vision and job of the creative team.”