Filmmaker Karan Johar reacted strongly to perceptions about Bollywood being “finished”, calling it “rubbish”. In the last year or so, many big-budget Hindi films have bombed at the box office even as counterparts from the south have minted money. This has prompted some speculation on the downslide of Bollywood’s dominance in Indian cinema. Johar, who has delivered some of the biggest Bollywood blockbusters like ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’, and ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’, says even though it has become a challenge to ensure audience footfall in theatres, good films will always work.
In a recent interaction, when asked to comment about claims that Bollywood is finished, Karan said, “It’s all nonsense and rubbish. Good films will always work. ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi' and ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2’ have done huge numbers. We have done numbers on ‘Jug Jugg Jeeyo’ as well. Films which aren’t good can never work and they’ve never worked.”
Films from the south easily dwarfed the figures of the hits from Bollywood. Both ‘RRR’ and ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ crossed £110 million while ‘Vikram’ and ‘Pushpa: The Rise’ earned over £35 million each. KJo said he is hopeful that the coming line-up of films from Bollywood, which comprises titles headlined by superstars Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan, will light up the box office.
“Now we have many big films coming up. We have 'Laal Singh Chaddha', 'Raksha Bandhan', 'Brahmastra', then there is Rohit Shetty's film and finally, we are ending the year with a Salman Khan film. There's so much to look forward to. We have all the love, we just need to create the right content to create it,” he added.
Kar is set to return to direction after six years with ‘Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani’. The movie stars Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Shabana Azmi, Dharmendra, and Jaya Bachchan. He is also currently hosting the seventh season of his popular talk show ‘Koffee With Karan’, streaming on Disney+Hotstar.
