"Slapstick, mindless humour will not work anymore, but intelligent comedy will make audiences laugh," Shah said.

Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who returned to comedy after 33 years with "Welcome to Sajjanpur", feels comedies will be successful in the future because of a sociological reason.

"There is a sociological reason behind the success of the genre. Comedies work well when circumstances around us are grim. In such a situation, comedies play an effective role in providing people momentary escape from the harsh realities," said Benegal.

The failure of the genre in the first half of the year has proved that it is not a cakewalk making a comedy that is crafted to amuse, entertain and provide enjoyment to all classes of people.

"People feel it's easy to make a comedy, but that's a myth. It's very difficult to make people laugh. Plus in this age of cinematic experience, you have to take care of so many things like the look of the film," said Rohit Shetty, director of last year's hit laugh riot "Golmaal Returns".

According to film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh, Bollywood churns out at least 20 comedies a year, some of them with a big star cast, but not all taste success at the box office because "audiences have learnt to separate the wheat from the chaff".

"Just because you insert a few laughs, doesn't mean you have a successful film on hand," he said.

Now all eyes are on Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor's lavishly shot romantic comedy "Kambakkht Ishq" and Akshaye Khanna and Arshad Warsi's "Short Kut - The Con Is On".

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