‘Shah Rukh Khan became soft target in recent years’: Pathaan director Siddharth Anand scoffs at ‘ridiculous’ boycott campaigns

Asked if he was worried that the protest might affect the film’s release, Siddharth Anand said, “All I know is they tried to boycott Pathaan and audiences came out in large numbers and supported it. I think if you’re going to boycott something, or raise your voice against it, there has to be some merit in that. It has to be substantiated with some facts and some reality. What they were trying to do with Pathaan was just ridiculous and the audience has given its verdict. There’s also been a huge amount of support for Shah Rukh who has been a soft target in recent years. That’s why the film has done such big numbers. There’s been such an outpouring of love – they came in wanting to like the film and not to judge it.”

Pathaan also serves as Shah Rukh’s return to starring roles after a gap of four years. The filmmaker said that “Shah Rukh never went away, but perhaps some of the films he was doing before were not justifying his stardom.”

He compared Shah Rukh’s stardom to that of Tom Cruise. Siddharth said that everybody knows that Cruise can act, but he chooses to play a version of himelf on the big screen because that’s what audiences want to see. “And that was why Shah Rukh chose to do Pathaan. We played around with that, we gave him songs, we give him scale, we give him action. And that’s what the audience wanted to see,” he said.

Pathaan has broken records for Hindi-language films in the one week that it has been in theatres. The film has made over Rs 300 crore in India, and Rs 600 crore worldwide. In North America, the film has grossed $10 million in just one week, which is more than the lifetime hauls of several Best Picture nominees at the upcoming Oscars.