Alia Bhatt: “Not all south films work, and some Hindi films do too”
Since the beginning of the year, Hindi cinema has been under the radar. There has been a North vs. South debate because some regional films are outperforming mainstream Hindi films at the box office. Alia Bhatt, an actor-producer, joined the discussion, saying that it has been a “tough year” for Indian cinema in general. Alia was a member of SS Rajamouli’s RRR and the leading lady in Gangubai Kathiawadi.
During the Express Adda on Monday, Alia told Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express, and Shubhra Gupta, Today, we sit here saying, ‘Oh Bollywood, oh Hindi cinema…’ But are we including the films that performed well this year? Even in the South, all of their films have failed. Some of the films have been successful, and they are excellent. Similarly, over here, beginning with my film Gangubai Kathiawadi, things have gone very well.”
Alia Bhatt believes that good content will always be valued. “A good film will always do well,” she said, adding that times are tough for cinema because the industry is still recovering from the pandemic’s losses. She also stated that there is a lot of introspection going on among those involved in the film industry.
“The lens today is harsh on cinema in general because we are approaching the end of a pandemic.” The theatres have been closed for nearly two years, so there is some sort of assessment, ‘What are the films that will work in theatres?’, ‘What are the films that are working in general?’ Good content will always do well, but we are now re-evaluating which films will be released in theatres, which will be released directly on an OTT platform, and what the general consumer habit is. So we’re just figuring it out. But that doesn’t mean the end of Hindi cinema. “This isn’t going to happen,” Alia stated emphatically.
Alia asserted emphatically that no one in the film industry is sitting idle and doing nothing to address the current situation. “No one is sitting there eating popcorn and saying, ‘Jo hona hai hone do.'” Everyone is concerned. “If you ask anyone in the movie business, we only talk about movies, that’s all we talk about,” she explained.
Darlings, Alia Bhatt’s debut film, is set to be released soon. Eternal Sunshine, Alia’s production company, is co-producing the film with Red Chillies Entertainment, owned by superstar Shah Rukh Khan. The film, which also stars Shefali Shah and Vijay Varma, will be available on Netflix on August 5.
