The year 2023 saw four Hindi films cross the Rs. 500 crore mark at the domestic box office: ‘Pathaan’, ‘Gadar 2’, ‘Jawan’, and ‘Animal’. An analysis reveals that they belonged to a specific archetype: high on masculinity and machismo.

However, according to an Ormax Media study, the protagonists of ‘Stree 2’, played by Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor, defy this archetype, making it a blockbuster very different from those in 2023, challenging the notion that post-pandemic Bollywood films must rely on larger-than-life action heroes to entice the audiences to visit the theatre. (https://www.ormaxmedia.com/insights/stories/breaking-the-blockbuster-mould.html)

Before 2023, Aamir Khan’s wrestling movie ‘Dangal’ was the highest original Hindi grosser at less than Rs. 400 crore making the success of the four 2023 films particularly noteworthy.

One of our preferred ways to find commonalities between different pieces of content is to look for commonalities among their protagonists (and key antagonists, if applicable). For this analysis, Ormax used a framework adapted from Jennifer Aaker’s Brand Personality Framework, to suit the context of the Indian entertainment business.

This framework, according to the Ormax study, is a collection of personality traits under five dimensions. Under these dimensions, 27 relevant traits have been retained from the original framework. The framework is used to analyse characters and celebrities, on how they are perceived by their audiences.

First, Ormax looked at six key characters across the four 2023 films mentioned above — Pathaan and Jim (‘Pathaan’), Tara Singh (‘Gadar 2’), Vikram Rathore and Azad (‘Jawan’), and Ranvijay (‘Animal’) — and the traits strongly associated with these six characters, and found striking similarities.

Three of them fell under the Excitement dimension, that is Daring, Spirited and Cool. Tough & Rugged, Confident, and Glamorous are the other three traits. These six are supported by secondary traits Good-looking and Intelligent. This combination represents a specific protagonist archetype, where Excitement and Ruggedness are the primary dimensions, and Competence and Sophistication are the supporting dimensions.

But sometimes, all it takes is one film, to challenge a set formula. ‘Stree 2’ was just that. The film is now the highest-grossing Hindi film of all-time, with nett domestic box office collections almost touching the Rs. 600 crore mark.

An analysis of the two principal characters in ‘Stree 2’, namely Vicky (played by Rajkummar Rao) and Stree (played by Shraddha Kapoor), the 2023 formula fails. Vicky’s top 5 traits, in order, are Funny, Friendly, Honest, Emotional, and Caring. Clearly, this “hero” is not cut from the same cloth as the blockbusters of 2023, Ormax pointed out.

In ‘Stree 2’ an absence of Ruggedness does not diminish, but rather enhances its appeal, demonstrating that theatrical worthiness can transcend templates of mainstream success. Whether we call Stree 2 an outlier or not is a matter of semantics. But the film’s success challenges the notion that post-pandemic Bollywood films must rely on larger-than-life action heroes to entice the audiences to visit the theatre, the Ormax study stressed.