How Hollywood is making masala hits like Top Gun Maverick and The Gray Man with India in mind

Heroes who can’t die, Indian actors cast in tokenistic roles, and universal threats that can be stopped only by a one-man army. By recycling and revamping such tropes, recent big-budget Hollywood productions like Top Gun: Maverick and The Gray Man are targeting global masses, clearly keeping the Indian market in mind. 

India loves superheroes from the West. That is clear from the exceptionally good business that Marvel productions do in the country. India is a major market for Marvel. Just look at the stats for Avengers: Endgame as a case in point. 

The big-budget conclusion to the MCU’s Infinity Saga is the ninth-highest grossing film ever in India with a box-office collection of Rs 442 crore.

With franchises like Marvel, Hollywood has acquired a global level of storytelling. These are stories that might include American characters but the scope of threat and the focus on action is such that it can be easily palatable for a global audience. 

The focus on the Indian market is evident from the elaborate promotion strategies that even non-Marvel blockbusters are employing before release. Characters like Tom Cruise's Maverick or Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto are no less than superheroes in this sense. After all, India is a country of 1.4 billion, cinema-loving people.

Unexpected collaborations: YouTuber Carryminati might be notorious for his controversial videos but who would have thought he would be interviewing Tom Cruise one day! One Digital Entertainment, the company that represents India, collaborated with Paramount Pictures to fly Carryminati all the way to the Paris premiere of Cruise’s Mission Impossible 6: Fallout. 

Similar instances include comedian Sahil Shah interviewing Tom Holland for Comic Con India right before the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming. A more recent example would be the Indo-centric promotion around The Gray Man. 

Building hype around Dhanush’s casting, the writer/director duo The Russo Brothers flew to India for an exclusive premiere of the Netflix film that saw the presence of not just media persons but also Indian influencers and YouTubers. Anmol Jamwal (who runs a film discussion channel Tried and Refused Productions) was one of the lucky ones who got to interview the Russos for his channel.

Casting Indian actors: Bollywood actors, in particular, have been involved in Hollywood productions for the last few decades. Unsurprisingly, some of these roles would be pretty stereotypical today such as Amrish Puri in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 

In contrast, American pop culture’s attitude towards Indians has changed in today’s “cancel-culture” generation. Apu is no longer on The Simpsons and Big Bang Theory viewers are now critical of Raj. And of course, a Hrundi V Bakshi would make viewers gag today.

While Indian actors aren’t being cast as backward characters with heavy accents, Indian representation still has a long way to go.

Two major cases in point can be Deepika Padukone’s casting as one of the heroines of XXX: The Return of Xander Cage and Dhanush’s supporting role in The Gray Man. The casting announcements for both actors were much hyped before the release. Vin Diesel arrived with Padukone at several Indian events to promote the film while the Russos didn’t spare any moment where they could pose with Dhanush in a ‘namaste’ pose. 

From a money-making perspective, it is a good choice to cast major Indian stars in a Hollywood production. It is clearly a promotion strategy to draw in more Indian viewers, especially now that the Indian market has began responding with ringing cash registers. But for those who have seen both action flicks, they would know that these anticipated roles were disappointing to say the least. 

Indian actors mostly fall victim to limited screen time or even limited speaking parts at times. Irrfan might have made a mark overseas with Life of Pi but even his other roles in big-budget productions like Jurassic World and The Amazing Spider-Man were easily replaceable and unmemorable. 

Universally relatable elements in the action genre: Top Gun: Maverick might be earning raves from all over but one can’t deny that the film throws all logic out of the window. No matter how old he is getting, Tom Cruise’s rule-breaking pilot Maverick will always save the day as expected. Straying away from the hypermasculinity of the 1980s, the ensemble is more diverse with Maverick’s team including an actress of Mexican-Nicaraguan origin,  an actor of Colombian-Mexican origin, and a couple of black actors. But, of course, these supporting characters have easily forgettable appearances as the film is only and only about Cruise. 

It wouldn’t even be an overstatement to compare Cruise’s stardom to that of an actor like Salman Khan or Rajinikanth who are pretty much used to blockbusters being centered entirely around their characters. 

Not a new phenomenon: After all, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger dominated the 80s with their ultraviolent “one-man army” cult hits like Rambo and Commando.

BUT these hits might not have that much of a universal appeal in the current socio-political environment.

This is where more family-friendly and diverse watches like Maverick come into the conversation. Unlike yesteryear action stars like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise appeals to a broader demographic than just the “muscular gym bro” crowds. Both Maverick and his seemingly never-ending Mission Impossible franchise employ an ethnically diverse cast only for Cruise’s hero to steal the spotlight. 

Talking about never-ending franchises, the Fast and Furious films also increase their ensemble cast only for Vin Diesel to be the hero who saves the day. Throw in a couple of explosions and melodramatic one-liners and you have a perfect ‘masala’ film that will appeal to all ages, and in theatres. 

On OTT too: Ryan Gosling in The Gray Man is a similar unkillable killing machine who refuses to even act wounded no matter what grievous situation he finds himself in. At the most, he misses a shoe. Dhanush was already wasted as mentioned earlier but even Ana De Armas’s CIA agent didn’t have much to do other than helping the hero with intel and occasionally driving him to safety. 

So, the “one-man army” formula is still present. It has just been altered and disguised a little to suit modern tastes and global audiences. 

In the end, it is only good for Indian businesses and viewers that Hollywood looks at the country as a major market. But in return for these global blockbusters, the least the firangs can do is not reduce Indian roles to just tokenistic cameos.