Filmmaker S Shankar is gearing up for the release of his next Game Changer, starring Ram Charan and Kiara Advani. Ahead of the film’s worldwide premier, the makers had organised a pre-release event in US’s Dallas a few days ago, where Shankar made some comments about viewers’ diminishing attention spans and how Game Changer has been made to accommodate this shift.

Disagreeing with Shankar’s viewpoint, director Anurag Kashyap, in a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, said, “I was recently reading this statement by Shankar sir saying ‘Today’s audience’s (attention) span has become very short. They watch Reels. So, we have kept that in mind while doing Game Changer.’ I don’t know what that means and we’ll only know when we see the film. A lot of filmmakers are talking in this language like, ‘My film is just like Reels put together because that’s what the audience wants to watch.’ Filmmakers who, at one point, were like chefs for me, creating things, are becoming caterers.”

“The moment you start thinking in terms of what the audience wants, that’s when the decline begins. The audience is not a one-organ person; it’s a massive sea of people. I still go by the old dictum of what filmmakers used to say, ‘audience will see what we put on screen with conviction, passion and love.’ That’s how you create a new thing. If you’re trying to guess what audience wants to watch, then you are literally destroying yourself… limiting yourself,” he added.

Game Changer also features Anjali, Samuthirakani, SJ Suryah, Srikanth and Sunil in key roles. The film marks Shankar’s first directorial in Telugu in his 32-year career.