The Hindi film industry entered 2005 feeling triumphant but the first quarter of the year has seen more unpredictable audiences and new lows in box-office collections.

All this came after superstar Shah Rukh Khan and sex emerged as mantras for box-office success and brooding uncertainties plaguing the film industry seemed to be on their way out.

At least 10 films have bombed at the box office since the beginning of the year.

Audiences rejected several skin flicks. A double dose of Neha Dhupia could not create enough sizzle for "Sheesha" and there were no takers for "Fun Can Be Dangerous Sometimes", "Chehra" and "Chahat - Ek Nasha".

Nor could Subhash Ghai entice viewers with his big budget "Kisna".

Instead, audiences patronised a film based on a deaf-dumb-mute girl - "Black" - and Madhur Bhandarkar's "Page 3", which was made on a shoestring budget.

Just when the pundits claimed, "stars are out, offbeat is in", audiences made "Bewafaa", with its archaic plot, an above average grosser and give the run-of-the-mill teenybopper romance "Socha Na Tha" a fighting chance.

Making matters more perplexing was the lack of audience interest for the very unusual Aishwarya Rai-Sanjay Dutt vehicle "Shabd" and Vikram Bhatt's masala mix "Jurm", which were unable to garner decent openings.

Likewise, audiences were not induced by veteran filmmaker Vinod Pande's much-vilified "Sins" to venture into the unspoken and unexplored.

And when the idea gained ground that emotions were in and action was out, especially after the intense child kidnapping drama "Blackmail" fell flat, the unusually violent film "Karam", which was released Friday, created a stir.

The blind race among established stars to sign up for anything that could be loosely termed as "different cinema" was more evidence that film folks are yet to give up the herd mentality -- following Rani Mukherjee's lead in "Black" is Ajay Devgan who essays the role of an autistic man in "Main Aisa Hi Hoon".

The flipside is that Bollywood is getting disconnected from millions of domestic and non-resident Indian fans that have fuelled the growth of its masala ware.

Said trade observer Deepa Gahlot: "It is unfortunate that a lot of small budget offbeat films turn out to be unwatchable.

"There is still a crisis of content, which, in this current self-congratulatory phase, the industry is not addressing." Poor box-office reports in the first quarter of 2005 have somewhat diluted the entertainment industry's case for sops in the eyes of the finance ministry.

The sector was ignored in the second consecutive budget as it did not incorporate industry representations to the finance ministry.

"The industry failed to come together in time to get Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to change the budget to its benefit," said an industry watcher.

"The decision of the government to bring multiplexes under the service tax net should have been opposed."

Multiplex promoters will now have to pay 10 percent of their earnings as service tax. This will result in a price hike for those who watch movies in multiplexes that dot the urban and semi-urban landscape.

Clearly, the industry needs to put its heads together not only for bettering its products but to emerge as a powerful lobby.

The question is likely to top the agenda of "FRAMES 2005", the annual industry gathering under the aegis of a leading industry chamber to be held in Mumbai next month.