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If Bollywood could speak, the one dialogue it’s certain to iterate at the moment is, ‘Yeh dukh kaahe khatam nahi hota be‘ (why is this grief not ending), considering the rough patch it has been going through since the beginning of this year. While the highest-grossing film of 2023, Jawan, recorded Rs 1,160 crore in total, this year’s top-grosser, Fighter, ended its theatrical run at Rs 358 crore, according to industry tracker Sacnilk.
Amid ongoing discussions about this bleak situation, Karan Johar, one of India’s most accomplished filmmakers, weighed in on the subject, asserting that a revamp and a change in the definition of theatrical success is the need of the hour.
“Firstly, the audiences’ tastes have become very definitive. They want a certain kind of cinema. And if you (as a maker) want to do a certain number, then your film has to perform at A, B, and C centres. Multiplexes alone will not suffice,” he said during a chat with journalist Faye D’Souza on her YouTube channel.
“Simultaneously, the cost of filmmaking has increased. There has been inflation. There are about 10 viable actors in Hindi cinema, and they are all asking for the sun, moon, and earth. So, you pay them; then you pay for the film, and then the marketing expenditure comes. And then your film doesn’t do the numbers. Those movie stars asking for Rs 35 crore are opening to Rs 3.5 crore. How’s that math working? How do you manage all these? Yet, you have to keep making movies and creating content because you also have to feed your organization. So there’s a lot of drama, and the syntax of our cinema has not found its feet,” he added.
“In the case of Hindi cinema, there has been a certain kind of syntax in each decade. Right now, we are like, ‘If Jawan and Pathaan worked, should we do only action?’ Then everybody’s running that way. Then suddenly a love story would work. I feel like we are running around like headless chickens. Conviction has taken a complete beating, and it’s all about herd mentality. We haven’t realized that there is a certain audience now that wants rooted Indian cinema and, without the pressure of what the critics have to say, pure joy,” he noted.
“They also don’t want alienating cinema. When you talk about urban syntax and alienate Tier 2 cities and the plexes in smaller towns, then you don’t do that massive business. You can make such urban cinema, but at a certain price,” Karan added.
Karan’s latest production Kill is currently in cinemas.
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