Vivek Agnihotri says Bollywood is in bad shape again as he reacts to box office report: Giving unrealistic fees to stars

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, in his latest tweet, shared that Bollywood is back at its ‘bad shape’.

He said so while reacting to a recent box office report which cited films like Bholaa, Shehzada and Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar which couldn’t recreate the commercial success of Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan. Reflecting upon the report, Vivek said that it’s the actors who are given ‘unrealistic and exorbitant fees’ happily despite poor performances.

Vivek wrote, “Bollywood is in bad shape. Again. Seems as if the entire industry is happy giving unrealistic and exorbitant fees to stars who can’t even guarantee an opening. Most money is wasted in vanity and lifestyle of stars. What’s going wrong?”

The article heaped praises of Pathaan as it remains the highest-grossing movie of the year so far. It also mentioned how films like Akshay Kumar’s Selfiee, Ranbir Kapoor-Shraddha Kapoor’s Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar and Kartik Aaryan’s Shehzada performed below expectations. Currently, it’s Ajay Devgn’s Bholaa clashing with Nani’s Telugu film Dasara.

According to film trade analyst Taran Adarsh, Bholaa is likely to hit the ₹50 crore mark at the domestic net box office. It earned over ₹44 crore in its extended weekend after release. On the other hand, Dasara is inching close to the ₹100 crore grossing club worldwide. It collected ₹87 crore in its opening weekend at the international net box office.

However, all of these are still far away from the massive box office performance of Pathaan. It became the most successful Hindi film of all time, beating out the Hindi version of Baahubali.

Earlier, Vivek had praised Shah Rukh Khan for the success of Pathaan, days after criticising the film in connection with the controversy around the song Besharam Rang. The Kashmir Files director credited Shah Rukh for saving the film against boycott calls.

Vivek Agnihotri has said during The Carvaka Podcast, “Pathaan worked purely because of the charisma and fan following of Shah Rukh, the way he marketed it and the way he took it on his shoulders that ‘it is my film and I am responsible for it’, which is pretty good.”

“I also think that some credit should also go to people who were making stupid statements against the film and people who were unnecessarily protesting and asking for boycott. These are different people from regular ‘boycott Bollywood gang’.

There is one kind that is always saying ‘boycott Bollywood’ for everything for many years. These were new players in the market and there was no need for them to do this. There were some violent factors who were saying we will burn this and burn that and that, I think, also contributed to this. And of course, our media channels,” he added.