A hunt is on in Bollywood for a new leading man who can bring the crowds back to Indian movie theatres.

With no new big male star emerging in the past five years, veteran actors from the 1980s and 1990s are still ruling at the box office, where takings have dropped steadily by eight to 10 percent in the past three years.

Industry players believe it is time for a new "star of the masses" to rise in Bollywood, India's prolific Hindi-language film industry which produces more films than does Hollywood.

"We are all in search of a new star for Bollywood," said producer-director Vipul Shah.

The last actor to drive movie fans near to hysteria was Hrithik Roshan, who was blooded by his director father Rakesh Roshan in the 1999 hit film Kaho Na Pyar Hai (Say That You Love Me).

In 1999 when Kaho Na Pyar Hai hit the screen, Hrithik Roshan became an overnight sensation In his early 20s at the time, Roshan became an overnight sensation, with fans mobbing him almost everywhere he went.

For months after his screen debut, streams of fans also waited for hours and hours outside his Mumbai home to get a glimpse of the handsome, athletically built actor.

Hrithik's success was something Bollywood had last seen in the '80s when Aamir Khan, along with former Miss India Juhi Chawla, hit the screens in a tragic romantic flick Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (Till The End Of Time).

But since the time Hrithik gave producers a brief reminder of Bollywood's heydays, no other actor or actress has managed to fire the collective imagination of the country's moviegoers.

"A number of boys have been launched since Hrithik's debut, but none drove people crazy the way he did," said producer Vashu Bhagnani, referring to actors like Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Vivek Oberoi, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Tushar Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor.

Five years on and even Hrithik has lost a lot of his star appeal due to his inability to deliver enough blockbusters.

His last solo hit was the 2003 science-fiction flick Koi Mil Gaya (Someone Found), a take-off of Steven Spielberg's E.T. and directed by his father.

Analysts said the industry, known for its candyfloss films and take-offs on Hollywood flicks, continues to be dominated by established male stars Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt -- most of them in the late 30s or early 40s.

Around the time Aamir made his debut in 1988, Salman Khan also set the screens on fire with his romantic lover boy image in Maine Pyar Kiya (I Have Loved), while Shah Rukh made a blazing entry in the early '90s and is now Bollywood's undisputable superstar.

"I feel Bollywood produces superstar once in 10 years," Shah said.

"In every decade there is a reign of a superstar, but it takes a lot of time for any actor to reach that status."

In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, three stars ruled the industry - Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor.

Kumar, still rated as Bollywood's greatest actor, saw his aura eclipsed to some extent when Rajesh Khanna was discovered in the late '60s. Khanna was idolised as a great romantic hero, with hundreds of fans carving his name in blood on their bodies.

Khanna's stardom was later overthrown by the blazing Amitabh Bachchan with his larger-than-life "angry young man image" when he burst onto the screen in the '70s in the hit film, Zanjeer (Chain).

The movie earned him a cult status and set him on a career in which he is now regarded as a legend.

Bachchan was rated as the greatest star of all time by a BBC online poll in 2000, beating Hollywood's Al Pacino and Sean Connery. At 63, he still continues to dominate the Hindi-language film industry and remains one of India's highest paid actors.

"In the early years even though many actors came, producers and directors had to rely on Kumar, Anand and Kapoor," said Shah. "That's the way it works and the same trend is evident even now, with no new big star in the past six years."

Analysts said lack of strong scripts was also making search for the right face difficult.

"It is just a super bad luck phase that is on in Bollywood. While films are technically rich now, they lack good scripts," said film analyst Komal Nahta.

"These weak scripted films are disappearing and so is the fate of the heroes. Producers continue to bank on the three Khans in the absence of any new hero for a film to click at the box office as they are sure their money is safe in a project which has any one of them," added Nahta.

As far as heroines are concerned, the situation is not so bad.

A series of former beauty pageant winners such as Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta are setting the screens on fire along with other big name actresses like Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee and Preity Zinta.

"There are enough heroines to bring the crowds, but let us not forget that Bollywood is still very much a male dominated industry where legends have always been men ... be it Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna or Amitabh Bachchan," said producer Bhagnani.

"We need someone like that."

Experts feel that the era of stardom is in any case ending due to the satellite television and communication revolution sweeping the country of one billion plus people.

"It is very difficult to create a superstar for candyfloss young generation," said veteran director Mahesh Bhatt, best known for his huge romantic hit Dil Hain Ki Manta Nahin (My Heart Is Not Listening), starring Aamir Khan with his daughter Pooja Bhatt.

"I think in the future stardom will last only for 15 minutes. It is difficult to find or create a superstar anymore as we are living in a world of reality and not fantasy."