“Bollywood Is Facing A Director Crisis”: Star Filmmaker

Renowned Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar said that Hindi cinema is going through a director crisis and added that most of them have forgotten how to make strong and mainstream films. He said that while emulating masculine and high-testosterone films, Bollywood has forgotten its strong genres.

In a recent interview, Karan Johar was asked whether Bollywood is facing a crisis in directors who can make one massive film which makes people rush into theatres. Answering the same, he admitted that the Hindi film industry is going through a great crisis for directors.

He said that an entire generation in the North spent their lives watching a different kind of film in Hindi cinema, nurtured on a different kind of cinema, influenced by globalisation, the Shah Rukh phenomenon in the 2000s, love stories, films shot abroad and many other factors.

He said that this generation hasn’t been able to do front-footed mainstream testosterone cinema because they don’t know it, they never knew it, now they can’t learn it, and when they emulate it, they go flat on their face.

He stated, “We don’t have such directors. I don’t know if we can mount a film like some of the other films that have been made. We don’t have that front-footed conviction in such genres.” Karan Johar said that Bollywood filmmakers should stop trying to emulate South-kind of mass masala and larger-than-life epics, and instead, should focus on what they have been generationally strong at.

He lauded the success of Saiyaara, saying that it proved what Bollywood is strong at. He said that Saiyaara’s director, Mohit Suri got appreciation from many South directors for that film, which has been a rarity these days as it has been Bollywood directors who were calling and appreciating South filmmakers for scoring big hits over the last few years.