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Siddharth Roy Kapur On Bollywood's 'Unhealthy' Box-Office Trends and Why 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham' Is A 'Mass' Film
Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur deconstructs the current state of the Hindi film industry and all that has changed from 'Dangal' to 'Deva'.
Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur doesn't hold back. Sitting in his office at Roy Kapur Films, the producer, with over two decades of experience backing and forming his conviction, talks about all things Hindi cinema with a refreshing candour not often spotted within industry circles.
Are these confusing times for Bollywood, which is battling perception woes, allegations of box-office manipulation, a storytelling crisis, and the general herd mentality of succumbing to trends?
"Maybe it is a confusing time with most of us are figuring out what to do," says Kapur, who backed some of the biggest Bollywood game-changers such as Barfi (2012), Haider (2014) and Dangal (2016) before starting his own production house in 2019 with The Sky Is Pink starring Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar.
With his latest feature Deva, starring Shahid Kapoor and Pooja Hegde, currently running in cinemas, Kapur talks to THR India about what is ailing Bollywood today, and deconstructs the making of a "mass" film.
Excerpts from a conversation:
In Deva, you collaborated with filmmaker Rosshan Andrrews, who is not from the Hindi film industry. We have had various examples in recent times where Bollywood actors have worked with south Indian filmmakers; is this the future?
We have become a pan-Indian industry in many ways and several barriers have been broken. If Wim Wenders can make a Japanese film and Ang Lee can make Brokeback Mountain (2005), why can't Hindi directors make a South Indian film in the same country? I look at it as a great thing that has happened.
Post-pandemic, the one word which has dominated trade and industry talks is 'mass' and the need for rooted 'mass' action dramas to be made more often. But in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), when the millionaire Shah Rukh Khan gets off a chopper at his mansion and runs towards Jaya Bachchan—and she turns with a thaali in her hand because she just knows her son has arrived—that is also a 'mass' moment, right? Will a romantic drama be considered worthy of a theatrical release today?
Sometimes we get sidetracked into thinking 'mass' means action and pure masala pulp spectacle. We have taken that as an interpretation of it. But Dangal (2016) is also a mass film. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Hum Aapke Hai Koun (1994) are mass films. 'Mass' is anything that can appeal to a large swathe of the audience, regardless of the genre.
The biggest hit of Hindi last year, Stree 2, is not a masala action film. It is a horror-comedy without big superstars. We do ourselves a huge disservice by categorising mass in a narrow box. So, let's not paint ourselves into a box thinking that only one kind of cinema is going to work today.
Most rom-coms are going to OTT and many action films last year failed at the box-office... while in 2023, they were the only ones that worked. Are these confusing times?
It probably is. But to take a whole genre and claim that it's not going to work theatrically might be a wrong idea. Again, take the example of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham; some aspects of the film are also in the rom-com zone, but look at the business it did back then. It all depends on the mounting and the scale. It was a very theatrical film with big stars involved, and had no action other than a few slaps! It would do the same kind of business were it released today.
You were the president of the Producers Guild of India from 2016 to 2022. It was a very interesting period because we had films like Dangal setting records, smaller films doing well, Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017) which changed the grammar of Indian cinema, the pandemic happened, and we almost had a Bollywood comeback in 2023. What did that phase teach you?
That this business is ever-changing and volatile. You have got to think on your feet and find solutions; everyone is going to make mistakes, so you have to correct those and keep going. There was a phase where the industry was vilified, and I am really proud of the stance we took at that point in time to come together and take on those who were vilifying us.
I saw a lot of unity then and especially during COVID-19, when all the efforts were made for the daily wage earners. When the industry has to come together, it does... but it does take an existential crisis at times to get us all together!
It is really important for us—and I am talking at a macro level—to recognise our soft power. For the nation to look at our creative industry as something that can take the story of India forward. For that, we need to get support from the government at a central, state, or even municipal level, to ease filmmaking permissions and help creative freedom. If we get that, we can be the next Korea in a couple of decades. The sorts of impetus that was given to them in a planned way—both financially and creatively—by the government was massive. They have taken over the world's pop culture today.
There have been a lot of discussions about the rising star fees, and entourage costs. Is this an area of concern?
It is, but it isn't up there with the existential stuff around what kind of movies should we be making. If we answer those questions, all these things will sort themselves out. It is a demand-and-supply situation. People are only going to ask what they think they can get, and if they get it, they will take it. If they don't get it, they'll settle for what they can get.
We need to stop hand-wringing on this; if you want to take a stand, just don't pay the stars so much. If you do, then stop bitching and mourning about it; get on with life and make a film that works and then everyone makes money. The more we keep lamenting on costs without anyone compelling us to spend, the more it is going to continue being a circular discussion without any productive solution.
When you were the president, was it also a great phase box office-wise?
It is always healthier when your median films are doing better. What has happened today is that the polarisation of results is extreme. The big films are doing bigger business than they ever did before the pandemic; but regarding the ones that are not working, there is no floor to how bad it can get. Consumers are deciding on watching four to five films a year, really coming out in hoards for those, and then not coming for anything else! That's not a good trend for the long-term health of the industry.
It is important for middle and smaller films to do better, and therefore to challenge themselves to make that experience also cinematic. Which is why the success of Stree and Munjya was heartening for me last year. That is a producer's victory... the courage and conviction to back a film like that. At a time when there is so much polarisation of results, you can still have films like 12th Fail and Munjya which break through. We need more of that.
As you mentioned, the audience is choosing to watch only four to five films in a year in the cinema halls; is it also because of the expensive ticket prices?
That's probably a factor as well; the convenience and price both. The inconvenience of going to a theatre has been highlighted even more by the convenience that they have at home today with the plethora of content available on streamers, and better screens that they can watch stuff on.
Is the Hindi film box-office going through an unhealthy trend? There have been concerns of producers pumping in their own money to buy tickets under the guise of 'corporate booking', which many in the trade feel isn't good for the health of the industry.
I don't think it is as rampant as people are making it out to be, but it is definitely not healthy at all. It should not be done... no one should indulge in it and the whole trade knows it anyway. So you are not earning any brownie points. Is it a massive factor, mathematically, in the total box-office picture? No, it is not, but it is a trend that should not keep happening.
Still, when you compare today with the times when I joined the business 20 years ago, the veracity of box-office numbers has improved to a massive extent. In 2005, you could only say with 70 to 75 percent accuracy that the figures were right; today you can say it with 95 percent accuracy. We need to work on the remaining five percent now.
Can that five percent be worked on in the years to come?
It can. With automation, computerisation and consolidation in the exhibition space, which was earlier so fragmented. Today you have a lot of the business being controlled by fewer players, so it can happen.
Is there something at this stage in the industry, that producers should not be doing?
To say anything definitive in this business is a fool's errand because honestly, as William Goldman said, nobody knows anything. The one thing I wouldn't do is follow a trend, even when your better creative senses are telling you not to.
You should make your own mistakes rather than make someone else's mistakes!