‘Saiyaara, Kantara Chapter 1 success proves Bollywood needs to look beyond stars,’ says Siddharth Roy Kapur: ‘If you pay big money, which star will say no?’

He quoted the example of Mohit Suri’s blockbuster romantic drama Saiyaara, starring newcomers Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, that earned over Rs 350 crore at the domestic box office earlier this year. “Your star fees weren’t required there because you weren’t dependent on them,” said Siddharth Roy Kapur.

“Rather than getting into why stars aren’t reducing their prices… if someone’s going to pay them, they’re going to take that price. Who’s going to say no? Our focus should be on how we make films which aren’t star-dependent,” added Siddharth.

He also quoted the success of other non-star projects of this year like Ashwin Kumar’s mythological animated film Mahavatar Narsimha (Rs 250 crore), Haruo Sotozaki’s anime action fantasy Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (Rs 88 crore in India), and most recently, Rishab Shetty’s period action fantasy Kantara: Chapter 1 (Rs 579 core and counting).

“The audience is telling us that if you give us good content without stars, then we don’t need stars either,” said Siddharth, however adding that it’s best to mix it up. “You must make films with Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, but you must make films without stars as well. Some films require stars. They’re star-driven. You need a certain heroism and superstardom to carry them. But the films that don’t need stars, don’t force stars onto them just because it’s a safety mechanism. Because your cost of production will escalate so much that your non-theatrical revenues might not add up. And you’re putting so much burden on the creation of the film that the film, which could’ve been very good without a star, actually doesn’t even turn out to be that good a film because there’s a star in it,” argued Siddharth.

Also Read — Siddharth Roy Kapur: ‘Biggest challenge is finding story that would appeal to wider section of audience’

Of the films Siddharth Roy Kapur has produced under his banner Roy Kapur Films, the non-star projects include Vinod Kapri’s thriller 2018 Pihu (headlined by a two-year-old actor), Soni Taraporewala’s 2020 dance film Yeh Ballet (a Netflix India Original starring newcomers), and Abhishek Sinha’s comedy Tumse Na Ho Payega (starring newcomers, which released directly on JioHotstar). The star-driven projects include Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar-starrer 2019 family drama The Sky Is Pink, Ishaan Khatter-starrer 2023 war drama Pippa (directly released on Amazon Prime Video), and Shahid Kapoor-starrer cop drama Deva earlier this year.