Karan Johar Addresses Bollywood Crisis: Inflation and Changing Audience Tastes Impacting Box Office Success in 2024

After a blockbuster year in 2023, Bollywood has witnessed another dull year in 2024. Half of the year passed, and despite the big-budget, star-studded movies, Bollywood is facing its biggest crisis ever as the movies failed to earn big numbers at the box office. Recently, filmmaker Karan Johar addressed the crisis as he went on to talk about the inflation period.

In an interaction with Faye D’Souza, KJo discussed the things that are the need of an hour.  “Firstly, the audiences’ tastes have become very definitive. They want a certain kind of cinema. And if you (as a maker) want to do a certain number, then your film has to perform at A, B, and C centres. Multiplexes alone will not suffice,” he said.

Further speaking, the “Rocky aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani” weighed in on the factors making things more difficult such as the filmmaking cost.

“Simultaneously, the cost of filmmaking has increased. There has been inflation. There are about 10 viable actors in Hindi cinema, and they are all asking for the sun, moon, and earth. So, you pay them; then you pay for the film, and then the marketing expenditure comes. And then your film doesn’t do the numbers. Those movie stars asking for Rs 35 crore are opening to Rs 3.5 crore. How’s that math working? How do you manage all these? Yet, you have to keep making movies and creating content because you also have to feed your organization. So there’s a lot of drama, and the syntax of our cinema has not found its feet,” he added.

During his interaction, Johar went on to share how things work in Hindi cinema. Giving example how after Shah Rukh Khan’s “Jawan” and “Pathaan” became a superhit, everyone started working on the action genre.

“In the case of Hindi cinema, there has been a certain kind of syntax in each decade. Right now, we are like, ‘If “Jawan” and “Pathaan” worked, should we do only action?’ Then everybody’s running that way. Then suddenly a love story would work. I feel like we are running around like headless chickens. Conviction has taken a complete beating, and it’s all about herd mentality. We haven’t realized that there is a certain audience now that wants rooted Indian cinema and, without the pressure of what the critics have to say, pure joy,” he noted.

“They also don’t want alienating cinema. When you talk about urban syntax and alienate Tier 2 cities and the plexes in smaller towns, then you don’t do that massive business. You can make such urban cinema, but at a certain price,” Karan added.

Backed by Karan Johar, Lakshya and Raghav Juyal-starrer “Kill” has garnered a lot of appreciation from critics. Directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, the movie got a lukewarm start at the box office. (Agencies)

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