Karan Johar, recently, addressed Bollywood’s ongoing crisis and talked about why many movies are failing to achieve box office success. In an interaction with Faye D’Souza, KJo said, “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.”
Sharing how the cost of filmmaking has increased, Karan Johar added, “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.”
During the same interaction, Karan Johar also mentioned that if a movie of a particular genre performs well at the box office, other filmmakers start creating projects in that genre. He expressed, “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.”
“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,” the filmmaker added.
Karan Johar’s recently produced Kill, which is running in cinemas. The movie directed by Nikhil Bhat features Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, and Tanya Maniktala in prominent roles.
