Defining a Hit!

When does a movie in India qualify to be called a hit? I wonder...

Growing up in various part of the country depending on where my father was posted, we (me, parents & my younger brother) used to travel down south for our summer vacations. During the period of 40-45 days we would have travelled through villages in Coimbatore and Madurai districts. And over the years we have watched Rajinikanth (the Superstar), Kamal Hassan and a host of other actors & actresses, their movies and their fan followings. Every movie was well documented right from the day its announced. Till not long ago Rajini & Kamal will have a movie releases on Pongal (harvest festival celebrated on January 14th) & Diwali days which happens with much fanfare consisting of huge processions to garland the actor's cut outs with music bands dishing out the actors hit songs etc amongst deafening noise of crackers.

And then the movies will run to packed houses for weeks and sometimes months together. A movie, if am not mistaken was declared a hit if its run for 25 weeks in the olden days, then came the times when it became 100 days to be declared a hit. Currently am told with the new generation actors 50 is the number down south.

In Bollywood it seems to be very very different. There are movies which have hardly run for a week or couple of weeks and they are declared hit. And this one within a couple of weeks is a worldwide hit!!!

Has the time span to qualify gone down or is it yet another stunt of promoting a movie and catching attention? Wonder if its a mix of both....

Personally it doesn't matter. Am somehow clear as to which moves I want to watch in theaters...and which ones I would rather catch glimpses on TV.

Whats your opinion of a hit???