In Retrospect: Bollywood hits and miss in 2013

Contrary to popular perception, many Bollywood films were commercial successes despite lacking 'big' stars on board

Lately, the economics of Bollywood has become a figment of imagination -- leaving very little space for rational evaluation. Given the prices multiplexes command and the trade's adherence to the much-discussed 100-crore-club, it's difficult to draw the line on hits and misses.
However, there have been some surprises in 2013, whereby films made on tighter budgets not only broke even but also made considerable profit. And most of them didn't feature a big name to reckon with. HitList names a few of these exceptionals...

'Aashiqui 2'
Director: Mohit Suri
Budget: Rs 9 crore
Box office: Rs 82 crore
Result: It's beyond doubt that this early release has to be the greatest surprise of the year. A love story making hay at the box-office fundamentally required a known couple on the big screen with chemistry and chutzpah to boot but this time around, we had much newer faces -- Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor -- as lovestruck protagonists. Regardless, the songs were massive hits and the movie went on to bring in more than R100 crore on a global scale.

Result: Starring Raj Kumar in a critical role, this film travelled across the fest circuit before finally bagging a commercial release. Co-produced by UTV Motion Pictures and Bohra Brothers, this much-appreciated biopic was released in about 400 screens across the country.

Result: John Abraham's first stint as a producer (Vicky Donor) proved to be a game-changer for him but his second stint was to be the litmus test. And going by the critical response and box-office figures, he is still in the game of coming up 'different' cinema. This politcal film with an acute historical conjecture starred him in a restrained role where he didn't have to be annoyingly loud

.Result: Adapted for the screen from Chetan Bhagat's hugely popular book, this Gujarat-centric film showcased three names -- Sushant Singh Rajput, Raj Kumar and Amit Sadh -- in the leading roles. Two of them were making their film debuts. All the three clicked. Music by Amit Trivedi raised the graph and Gattu ended up with his biggest hit so far.