Bollywood producers are ‘cheap imitators’ who have no idea about Demon Slayer, they’ll start making Lokah rip-offs now: Anurag Kashyap

Having made his opinions about Bollywood’s unoriginality clear already, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap predicted that the Hindi film market will soon be flooded with rip-offs of the recent Malayalam-language blockbuster film Lokah: Chapter 1. The superhero film is on track to become the biggest hit that the Malayalam industry has ever produced, having grossed over Rs 250 crore at the global box office so far. Produced by Dulquer Salmaan and starring Kalyani Priyadarshan and Naslen, the film is directed by Dominic Arun. Lokah is intended to start a new franchise, something that several major Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films have failed to in recent years. Anurag, meanwhile, has shifted base from Mumbai to Bengaluru. He said in a new interview that Bollywood producers are probably not even aware of how popular the Japanese anime franchise Demon Slayer is in India. “Whenever you open BookMyShow, Demon Slayer is playing. Bollywood producers have no idea about it; they’re happy seeing posters of their own films,” he said.

In an interview with Entertainment Live, Anurag described Bollywood producers as ‘cheap imitators’, and said that their understanding of cinema is limited to the ‘hit films’ that they watch, and that they are completely clueless about the different kind of films out there. “Hindi cinema is lacking good producers. They see their counterparts from the South producing massive hits packed with violence and action, and the only thing they can think of doing is making the same films in Hindi. South filmmakers have conviction, Hindi producers don’t; they’re cheap imitators. It’s the producers’ fault. They also get in the way of directors who actually have the conviction,” he said. He added, “Look at how well Lokah is doing… Filmmakers there are very collaborative, but the Hindi industry has gone in a different direction. Just wait and watch, they’ll make 10 Lokah rip-offs now.”

Also read – Anurag Kashyap ‘got a message’ from people behind major Bollywood hit, was told to keep his ‘genuine praise’ for the film to himself: ‘My jaw dropped’

Story continues below this ad

In a past interview with Galatta Plus, Anurag cited the example of Yash Raj Films, and said that the studio is suffering from ‘the trial room effect’, where films are made in offices and not by filmmakers. “The industry is such that people will continue walking in from all walks of life,” he said, adding, “Here, cinema is largely controlled by those people, and that too second generation, that has grown up in trial rooms. They have not lived life. So, they’re referencing is based on cinema. What is not on screen can’t be cinema to them. The biggest problem with YRF is the trial room effect. You take a story and you want to make a Pirates of the Caribbean out of it and it becomes Thugs of Hindostan. You take a story, and you want to make a Mad Max: Fury Road out of it, and it becomes Shamshera.”

Anurag made another jibe at Hindi filmmakers at the Synapse Conclave recently, where he was asked about the influence of artificial intelligence on cinema. “If you are talking about influence of AI in Hindi cinema, they have not made anything original recently. It is mostly remakes, and honestly, AI can help them with better copies and better remakes,” he said.

At a masterclass even held at the Annapurna College of Film and Media, Anurag spoke about the line of clones that SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali movies inspired. “There’s one Rajamouli. And then there are 10 cheap versions of Rajamouli. And all 10 cheap versions of Rajamouli can’t be Rajamouli because Rajamouli is an original, no? So everybody thinks he’s working so they try to copy him. But his ideas are coming from where, he knows. Similarly, one KGF works, everybody starts to do the same thing,” said Anurag. The filmmaker is currently promoting his new movie Nishaanchi, which will be released in theatres on Friday.