Aamir Khan and Javed Akhtar recently shared their thoughts on the situation of the Hindi film industry and what lessons it can take from southern cinema.
They were speaking at the launch of Aamir Khan: Cinema Ka Jadugar, a film festival by PVR INOX celebrating the actor’s 60th birthday and his contributions to Indian films.
“We’re not focusing on the broader strokes like anger, love and revenge. We should make films with conviction (like the South does). South films are what we used to call single-screen films — very mass, very rooted. Maybe Bollywood is focusing more on multiplex films,” Aamir said.
“We’re telling our consumers that you can come and consume our product (film). If you don’t, we’ll bring it to you in eight weeks (through OTT platforms), when it will be free of cost as you’ve already paid for it (through subscription). I don’t know how to sell a product twice. Earlier, I used to watch movies because I had no option. Now, it’s dependent on a fancy for films. So we’ve killed our own business model,” he added.
Akhtar said that there needs to be a longer gap of at least three-four months between theatrical and streaming releases. “Even a hit film releases on OTT in just 4 weeks,” he said.
Despite these concerns, both Aamir Khan and Javed Akhtar remained optimistic about the industry’s revival. “It’s like a cycle. You make mistakes and then course correct,” Aamir said, to which Javed added, “Hum jaldi samajh jaye toh achha hai. Nahi toh humari cycle hi bik jaegi (The sooner we understand this, the better. Otherwise, we’ll have to sell even our bicycles).”