Anurag Kashyap recently Instagrammed his concern with Indian films such as Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga and his own Bandar being allotted less theatrical screens. Whereas Hollywood films like Obsession continue to enjoy a better showcasing.
And on top of that, social media has been abuzz with annoyed fans highlighting how Anurag and Imtiaz’s works are neglected at the time of their release, only to gain a cult status years down the line.
When HT City reaches out to Anurag to ask how does it feel to have fans come up to him years later and praise his films, he doesn’t mince words, “I get angry, upset because people keep coming to me and talking about how they love this film and that film. I often ask them, ‘Where did you see it?’ and nobody has actually seen it in theatres. I’m quite used to it.”
‘Makers of Aamir Khan’s PK makers had accommodated Ugly’
But there was a time when both fellow filmmakers and theatres would be accommodating. Recalling the release of his 2014 film alongside Rajkumar Hirani-Aamir Khan’s PK, he shares, “Ugly had a release in France before India. It came out on Blu-ray and subsequently got on pirate sites, so we had to rush the release back home. At that time PK was running so many shows in cinemas. I made a call to Siddharth Roy Kapur, Ronnie Screwvala and Raju Hirani, and we released Ugly in finally at least three shows, they made sure that our film got it. That time is gone now. I can understand the theatrical business is business. They want to make money right now, and Obsession is working. But my thing is, Obsession can still survive on less shows. It will still work with five shows, people will still see it. If not today, they will see it tomorrow,” reasons the 53-year-old.
For Indian films to not get enough attention from theatres then, which have garnered good reviews, didn’t go down well with him. “Films should get proper shows so that people can watch them, allowing word of mouth to build up. The thing is, theatre owners themselves don’t allow the word of mouth to build up. Then the problem is there’s an audience that’s not getting to see these films and they’re getting used to seeing them on OTT. You’re not building your audience- you’re building an audience only for event movies. If you are building an audience only for event movies, then only those movies will be made. They are so expensive, and the hit-and-miss ratio is huge. For every Dhurandhar, there will be five expensive films that will bomb. Whereas these films are not so expensive and one needs to build word of mouth,” says Anurag.
Inconvenient show timings
Giving an example, the filmmaker says that he wanted to see the Nepali-language film Shape of Momo in Bangalore recently. He found there were only two shows available, and situated far away from his place. “And at such inconvenient timings that you had to travel one hour and wake up early in the morning just to not miss the show,” he adds, “It was like a token release by the cinema. Which is why when I booked a ticket for Main Vaapas Aaunga on Saturday, there was only one show. Now it has increased to three shows in the cinema nearby. But it was just one show early in the morning then. We went at 9:40 am to see the film in a cinema. The word of mouth is not allowed to build up. Slowly people give up on it because they’re like, ‘Okay, it’s an inconvenient time and we’ll see it when it comes on OTT.’”
He goes on to further add, “Bandar’s night shows were full. But who will go and watch it at 9 AM, when it is going to upset you for the rest of the day! There’s human psychology also involved. If I watch my own film, the rest of my day will be ruined. Main Vapas Aaunga is not like Bandar, it should have had more shows. It’s emotional, soulful, has everything that’s good about commercial films. I can still understand for Bandar.”
‘Regional films take pride in their cinema’
He finds the treatment of regional films to be better at times. Maharashtra has made it compulsory for all state theatres to screen Marathi films four weeks in a year, and to allocate at least one show to them in the prime time slot. “Regional films take pride in their cinema and make sure they showcase their local cinema, whether it’s Kannada films in Karnataka, Telugu films in Andhra or Malayalam films in Kerala. They show pride in their local films and they give them that many shows. But that doesn’t happen for Hindi because Hindi is spread out. Hindi is not the language of Maharashtra, and UP, Haryana, MP don’t have so many cinemas. These are the states with the least number of cinemas. The kind of films one makes need some kind of urban audience.”
