MUMBAI, Aug 3:
At a time when the benchmark of Bollywood box office success has scaled up to an elite figure of Rs 100 crore, filmmaker Karan Johar has refused to be influenced by it saying he rather believes in longevity of films.
“I don’t know why are we tagging films with Rs 100 crore mark. There is too much of pressure of Rs 100 crore. At the end of the day the film is here for longevity and it is not necessary that every Rs 100 crore film will breathe forever,” the filmmaker said.
“Rs 100 crore mark is like a big glorious century and it is great to achieve it. But if you achieve Rs 10 crore less or more, it does not make your film smaller or bigger,” he said.
Earlier, a good story with musical scores appealing the audience was the touchstone of Bollywood triumph. For years ‘silver jubilee’ was the measure of a stunning hit, but today things have changed as films touching the Rs 100 crore mark are termed as blockbusters.
“I think longevity is everything in movie business. Looking back 50 years later, when we think of gems of cinema we would not analyse them in terms of box office. We would remember them as cinema and what contributed to cinema. And we hope to truly achieve that with ‘Student of the Year’,” he said.
Johar returns to direction after a gap of two years with ‘Student of the Year’, which has three new faces – Alia Bhatt, daughter of Mahesh Bhatt and Soni Razdan, Varun Dhawan, son of filmmaker David Dhawan, and newbie Siddharth Malhotra.
Co-produced by Johar’s good friend Shahrukh Khan, the film is set to release on October 19.
On how the film is going to fare, the producer-director said, “I wish any filmmaker could answer about how his film would turn out on the day of the release. You make it and leave it to destiny and for the audience to decide the rest. I believe consumer is the king and when he gives his verdict, it is not biased,” Johar said.
“No filmmaker can predict the outcome of his film in advance, no research work can help, it is all word of mouth that helps. I can’t preempt and predict about the fate of my film,” he said.
A new age school drama, ‘Student of the Year’ is about three students – Rohan, Shanaya and Abhimanyu – played by Siddharth, Alia and Varun, respectively.
Earlier, there have been films centred around high school ‘Always Kabhi Kabhi’, ‘Luv Ka The End’ and others, but none of them made it big at the box office.
“I never looked at it as a risk. I looked at it as an experience. I have no idea about the commercial outcome of the film. Tomorrow when the audience will watch it and experiences this film, they will judge it whether to watch it or not. I would never compare one (film) with other and one experience to another,” Johar said.
“There have been films that have worked in one genre, like so many love stories have worked well and some have not. It is about how you direct it, present it. I have no idea why other youth films have not worked. But this one is something directed by me, and I hope it connects effectively with the audience,” he said. (PTI)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel