Why stardom no longer guarantees success in Indian cinema?

While stardom was once “a compounding force” built on consistency, volume and unwavering fan loyalty, this traditional equation is now changing. The IMDb “25 Years of Indian Cinema” report (2025) identifies a significant change in how stardom functions within Indian cinema.

From Guarantees to Multipliers

In the first five years of the 2000s, Shah Rukh Khan’s films ranked No. 1 every year. Of the top 25 films released between 2000 and 2004, he starred in eight. By contrast, the last five years have featured 23 different male leads across the top 25 films, with only four actors appearing more than once.

The report explicitly concludes that “stars function less as guarantors of success and more as multipliers of a movie’s intrinsic strengths.”

Stardom still matters, but its role has shifted within a larger creative and commercial machinery.

Also read: Indian cinema’s power shift is a realignment, not a replacement: What IMDb’s Report Reveals

The Changing Star–Fan Contract

According to the report, the star–fan relationship has become “more porous.” Stars now engage directly with audiences through multiple touchpoints beyond cinema, making fandom “less devotional” and “less sacrosanct.”

The report also notes that contemporary actors:

1. release fewer films
2. operate in a fragmented attention economy
3. face higher production costs and longer project timelines

As a result, the density of releases that once sustained superstardom is no longer possible.

Collaboration Over Celebrity

Over the last five years, 12 of the 25 films in the dataset show strong cross-industry collaboration across direction, casting, music and distribution.

Director-led collaborations are highlighted as particularly effective, with directors described as “the key architects of this new era of cinema,” ensuring alignment of scale, tone and ambition.

This reflects a system where audience trust is increasingly built on creative coherence rather than celebrity alone.

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What This Can Mean for Marketers

The report presents a clear shift:

1. Stardom still amplifies visibility
2. But success depends on storytelling, collaboration and long-term relevance

For marketers, this signals that influence today is distributed, and star power works best when anchored in strong narrative fundamentals.