Top Bollywood director Madhur Bhandarkar, known for his penchant for realistic films, said the success formula for a Bollywood film now was to mix realism with fiction for a bold depiction of society.

Bollywood for decades has dished out cheesy romances, popular melodramas and revenge sagas, garnished with song-and-dance routines that are sometimes raunchy, to ensure box-office returns.

But in the recent past, the industry has shown a departure from the established hit-formula and directors have experimented with scripts and characters to probe relationship blues, humorous plots and sensitive issues like HIV/AIDS.

"I'm very happy to see how Bollywood is making more mature, bold films," Bhandarkar, who has made some of Bollywood's most realistic films like "Chandni Bar", "Page 3", "Corporate" and "Traffic Signal" told in a telephonic interview from Mumbai.

"People want to see different cinema. Today there is a trend to make movies, which have a mixture of realism and fiction. As time goes by, you will see more and more such films hitting the theatres."

Bhandarkar cited the success of his realistic films like "Corporate" and "Traffic Signal", both of which had a low budget of around Rs.40 million but grossed nearly three times more than the cost of the film.

"People now don't want to see films that have no story. They want to appreciate meaningful films," said Bhandarkar, whose next realistic film "Fashion" intends to reveal the lives of people associated with the profession.

Bhandarkar feels that the popular song-and-dance sequences will also take a back seat in the years to come and directors will make intelligent use of music.

"Look at 'Cheeni Kum'. Music has been so beautifully used to enhance the appeal of the movie," he said. "This is the change which will slowly come to the forefront. Innovation with music is slowly happening."

Films like "Parzania", based on the 2002 Gujarat riots that killed over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, in the state and "Black Friday", based on the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts that killed over 250 people, have used songs in the background to suit the script.