Akshay Kumar, whose recent movies- Samrat Prithwiraj, Raksha Bandhan, Bachchhan Pandey--did not fare well in the box office, said that the film industry is in dire need to reinvent itself.
At the 20th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Ram Charan and Akshay Kumar took the dais to talk about the latest situation in the film industry. While Ram Charan has seen immense success with RRR, he too agreed with Akshay Kumar.
Even though the effect of Covid Pandemic has worn off, cinema goers have not quite come back to theatres for Bollywood movies. Several movies that were built up to be a blockbuster, failed miserably at the box office after its release.
Reason for failure
Actor Akshay Kumar said, “Things have changed. The audience wants something different. It is our fault that they’re not coming to the theatres. We have to give them something they want."
Stressing on the fact that the film industry needs to reinvent, Kumar said that he has been in the media and entertainment industry for over 30-years and over years, the tastes of the audience are changing.
Solution to success
Reinvent
"We have to dismantle and rebuild, reinvent everything. We have to start all over again", says Kumar.
Akshay Kumar reiterated that the film industry needs to break down and re-build itself in order to cater to the audience. Akshay Kumar and Ram Charan agreed that the answer to success lies in the film industry reinventing itself.
They further said that film industry also needs to erase the distinctions between regional cinema where in people distinguish as Bollywood films and South movies. Kumar and Ram Charan said that film industry needs to come together to better the quality of Indian cinema.
Slash prices
Akshay Kumar at the summit said that prices of making a movie and the subsequent ticketing needs to be reduced by at least 30-40%.
He said that actors need to charge less money, prices of tickets need to be reduced and the overall money it requires in the making of a cinema needs to be reduced for cinema goers to return to cinema halls. “You have to do this if you want the public to come back to the theatre," he added.
Muti-cast ensemble
Akshay Kumar further said that any movie will reach the ‘epic’ standard only when it is multi-cast. Taking the example of Marvel movies, Kumar said, “Look at Hollywood, what kind of movies they’re bringing. It’s Marvel movies where everyone comes together and people want to see that. They want to experience and enjoy. The audience wants a story and much more. They don’t want to just give their money, they want a value for it," he said. “We need to all get together and do big cinema".
Ram Charan concurred. “You have to rethink and restructure the whole game moving forward, from the script to the making to the exhibitor. Everyone has to pitch in. Eventually, a good subject and a good script cannot be stopped. People will come to the theatre," Charan said.
Cater to changing audience taste
Both Akshay Kumar and Ram Charan added that the film industry needs to acknowledge and work around their audience's changing taste and viewing habits. From a rampant shift to OTT platforms to larger-than-life movies, both actors stressed that audience preferences have changed.
“It’s very tricky at the moment. People require to see larger-than-life, an epic film like RRR or Sooryavanshi…I think people want to watch that big cinema and we have to try to start making that. You have to cater to OTT also and cinema going audience also. I just hope one day, people come for all kinds of cinema," Kumar said.
Just call it 'Indian Cinema'
“This whole thing of Telugu cinema, Tamil cinema, Hindi cinema, Gujarati cinema – why can’t we just call it Indian cinema? I would prefer it like that" Akshay Kumar said to the audience when Ram Charan noted that event hough at a point it was Rajinikanth and Kamaal Hassan, now all actors have become one unit -the Indian Cinema Unit.
“Of course, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan ji also travelled across and did very well. My dad also did a couple of films. But today, we have become one unit – the Indian cinema unit," Ram Charan said.
The last couple of yearsa number of Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada movies have achieved national success. RRR -- which starred Charan and NTR Junior collected over ₹1,200 crore at the box office – was only the latest film in this string of successes.
